History

Mentone Educational Centre started out as a business for school coaching (private/individual) in the home around 1975 and had about 50 tutors going out to the homes of students.

In 1978, the business expanded and began to import real bone material for sale to Medical students in Australia and the UK. The company then progressed to selling Medical text books and in 1981, moved to a shop in Ashburton. As Mentone became better known, we started to purchase 3B Scientific and Somso® anatomical models from the sole Australian importer at that time, selling directly to schools and medical professionals.

Over the next 10 years, Mentone moved away from coaching and started to supply schools, becoming distributors for several UK school book publishers. Physiology testing equipment and anatomical wall charts were added to our range, as well as a range of medical simulators.

Mentone Educational took a big leap forward in 1988 when Ramsay Medical closed and we purchased their stock and took over their agencies. A big development for Mentone was that 3B Scientific and Somso® allowed us to purchase the models directly from them, making us the sole Australian agents for their models.

In 1991, Mentone Educational moved to larger premises in Carnegie and moved away from importing books so we could develop markets in technology, storage furniture, school charts and allow us to expand our range of human physiology equipment. The larger premises also allowed us to expand and concentrate our core business which was our range of anatomical models.

In 2005 Mentone Educational moved to much larger premises in Moorabbin as we needed much more space to accommodate the growing range of products we stocked. We also increased our staff from 6 to 12 people in order to handle our expanding range. As the previous owners of our Moorabbin warehouse were major poster suppliers, we inherited many racks designed to accommodate wall charts. Taking advantage of these racks we have expanded the number of wall charts in our range and have added hundreds of new titles in all school subjects.

The rest you know…