Electrical Marketing's LiveWire

The Green Restaurant Association has named the Extra Thyme Cafe, an eatery inside Graybar’s Centerpoint facility in Maryland Heights, Mo., its newest certified Green Restaurant in the St. Louis area. Extra Thyme Café, owned and operated by Kim Cuddeback, earned the Two-Star Certification for its efforts to go green and is only the third restaurant in Missouri to do so.

Extra Thyme has been serving breakfast and lunch to Graybar employees and guests for more than eight years. Cuddeback had wanted to use more eco-friendly packaging for years but had nowhere to compost or recycle it. Once Graybar started implementing its green building strategy, which included building-wide single-stream recycling and composting, things changed.

“We used to have six overflowing trash cans each day,” Cuddeback said in an announcement on Graybar’s Facebook page. “Now we fill less than a three-gallon bucket with trash. The rest is composted and recycled.”

The savings in waste are due largely in part to Kim switching to new types of packaging that are compostable or recyclable. This packaging switch also gave Kim major points for her Green Restaurant certification. Next she plans to shoot for the GRA’s three-star level, which will involve more local sourcing of food and further reductions in packaging.

Jim Newton, 84, of Oakes Electric Supply/Horizon Solutions, Holyoke, Mass., passed away on Aug. 11 at his home in South Hadley, Mass. There was no one quite like Jim in the electrical business. He learned the industry from his father at Oakes Electric Supply before venturing off into several new pursuits, including Sales Tech Corp., a sales, marketing & training company, and Profile Systems, one of the electrical market’s early players in e-business.

Family was #1 with Jim, and he enjoyed grooming his son, Jim, Jr. (Newt), to take over management of the company. Jim always liked to joke that he knew he had done a good job training him — and that it was time to try something new — when he arrived at work one day to find his desk in the parking lot.

Jim wrote for Electrical Wholesaling for decades and created the Electrical Products Education Course (EPEC) for the National Association of Electrical Distributors (NAED), a brilliant training program that still exists today. He also trained hundreds of electrical salespeoople over the years as part of Sales Tech. I can still hear his gravelly voice and thick New England accent telling any one of his many sales tales. He loved the business of sales in general and the electrical market in particular. I saw him last about four years ago at Oakes Electric Supply, where he was involved in a labor of love — putting together an Electrical Museum that housed industry photos and artifacts.

His obituary says that instead of sending flowers, he wants you to take a friend to lunch. He was one of my mentors in the electrical business, and I am glad I did that the last time I saw him. We enjoyed a Fribble together at his favorite Friendly’s restaurant near Oakes Electric Supply.
Jim Newton obituary

In what may be one of the more interesting acquisitions in the lighting business this season, Cree Inc., Durham, N.C., announced that it’s acquiring privately held lighting fixture manufacturer Ruud Lighting, Racine, Wis., for a net outlay worth approximately $525 million in combined cash and stock.

Among the benefits cited by Cree when the deal was announced today were Ruud’s position in the market for LED outdoor lighting and its sales organization.

“This acquisition creates a market leader for indoor and outdoor LED lighting, accelerating adoption and expanding the market for both Cree’s LED systems and components. Other synergies include increased access to the lighting market through expanded sales channels and operating leverage from increased economies of scale. Through a broader presence in the lighting systems market, Cree gains additional knowledge and expertise to develop the next generation of industry-leading, lighting-class LED components,” the release stated.

Ruud will stay in Racine as a division of Cree Lighting and Alan Ruud takes a seat on Cree’s board. More to come.

Cree Release

Following a drop of almost a full point in June, the Architecture Billings Index (ABI) fell again by more than a point in July. As a leading economic indicator of construction activity, the ABI reflects the approximate nine-to-twelve month lag time between architecture billings and construction spending. The American Institute of Architects (AIA), Washington, D.C., reported the July ABI score was 45.1 –- the steepest decline in billings since February 2010 -– after a reading of 46.3 the previous month. This score reflects a continued decrease in demand for design services (any score above 50 indicates an increase in billings). The new projects inquiry index was 53.7, a considerable slowdown from a reading of 58.1in June.
“Business conditions for architecture firms have turned down sharply,” said AIA Chief Economist, Kermit Baker, PhD, Hon. AIA. “Late last year and in the first couple of months of this year there was a sense that we were slowly pulling out of the downturn, but now the concern is that we haven’t yet reached the bottom of the cycle. Current high levels of uncertainly in the economy don’t point to an immediate turnaround.”
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EMCOR Group Inc., Norwalk, Conn., said its Hyre Electric subsidiary has been awarded a contract to upgrade the electrical systems for ArcelorMittal S.A. Indiana Harbor’s facility, located in East Chicago, Indiana. EMCOR Hyre Electric will be responsible for upgrading all of the electrical systems for ArcelorMittal S.A. Indiana Harbor’s 84-inch Hotstrip Mill, which is being retrofitted in order to expand its coiling capabilities. The upgrade will make the Indiana Harbor facility the only steel mill in the country capable of producing heavy-gauge steel for water and oil pipelines. Scope of work includes rewiring and replacing the coilers, as well as installing switchgear and transformers for the hydraulic building. EMCOR Hyre will also install new controllers for hundred’s of the facility’s run-out table motors.
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W.W. Grainger Inc. plans to buy European fastener distributor Fabory Group for $344 million. Based in the Netherlands, Fabory sells its 80,000 products in 14 countries. It had 2010 revenue of about $300 million. According to a press release announcing the acquisition, Grainger said it plans for Fabory to continue to operate as a separate business, keeping its name and brand.
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HD Supply Facilities Maintenance has been awarded the products and related services MRO contract for one of the largest counties in the United States – Maricopa County in Phoenix, Ariz. The government purchasing contract is in partnership with U.S. Communities, a non-profit government purchasing cooperative that provides state and local government agencies, school districts (K-12), higher education and non-profit organizations access to quality products and services at reduced costs through competitively solicited contracts between suppliers and lead public agencies. The agreement between HD Supply Facilities Maintenance and U.S. Communities is a six-year contract that consists of three base years and three one-year extensions.
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In our search for information on the latest in green technology, Electrical Wholesaling’s editors often stumble across somewhat unrelated but still very cool stuff. Check out this article posted on the Environmental News Network about an Alaskan volcano that’s recently been erupting and otherwise acting up.
We thought the NASA image of a plume of smoke streaming from the volcano was totally mind-blowing in a geeky sort of way. If this is your bag, check out some of this other NASA imagery.

Platt Electric Supply, Beaverton, Ore., added to its regional network of branches in the western United States by opening six new branches over the past six months in Tracy and Modesto Calif.; Ellensburg and Pullman Wash.; Winnemucca, Nev.; and Madras, Ore. The company also announced plans to add 150,000 square feet of distribution space in Salt Lake City. This new distribution center (pictured at top) will provide overnight support for the Intermountain market and new branch expansion throughout Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Wyoming, Utah, western Colorado and northern Arizona. Dave Anderson the Intermountain region’s vice president, said in a press release that there’s plenty of room to grow in the area.
Jeff Baker, president of Platt Electric Supply, also said in that release, “We love the communities we are entering and the opportunities they hold. Our continued expansion helps all of our customers by providing better access and seamless service.” With a website showcasing 50,000-plus products, easy mobile applications, 105 branches and live phone support 16 hours a day, seven days a week, Platt Electric Supply has grown to the 12th largest electrical distributor in the United States.”