National Association of Electrical Distributors (NAED)
The association named Wes Smith as the new president and CEO. Smith will begin his role immediately. Smith previously worked as the senior advisor for Rexel USA and as president and CEO of Mayer prior to Mayer becoming part of Rexel. Smith has grown up in the industry, starting in the warehouse and working through various roles in finance, technology, continuous improvement, operations and strategy.
Smith has extensive experience with NAED. He was NAED’s chairman from 2020-2022, helping to navigate the association during the COVID pandemic. He remained on the NAED executive committee as past chair until his appointment as president and CEO. Smith has been involved with IDEA over the past 20 years, including past IDEA Chair.
Crawford/Sonepar (Houston)
The company announced its new organizational structure following the combination of Crawford and Irby’s Commercial and Industrial Business.
“Our structure enables us to maintain local leadership and decision making and clearly demonstrates our belief that our business is built at the branch and region level,” said Mike Dumas, Crawford’s president, in the press release. “While we have significant revenues, size and scale, we operate as a local electrical and industrial distributor.”
Crawford’s structure is now comprised of four primary geographies spanning eight states, 60-plus branch locations, and more than 1,300 associates. Crawford’s North, South, East and West geographies are structured to logically align our network of branches within its markets and with its suppliers and agents.
Here are the personnel promotions:
• Mike Font has been promoted to senior VP, South (Texas Gulf Coast and southern Louisiana)
• Ron Martin has been promoted to senior VP, West (Central/south and north Texas)
• Josh Law serves as regional VP, (northern Oklahoma, northern Louisiana and portions of Arkansas)
• Matt Berns serves as a regional VP in the East (central Tennessee, northern Mississippi/Alabama and portions of Arkansas)
• Chris Mitchell serves as a regional VP in the East (Central/south Alabama and Mississippi)
• Bart Perez serves as a regional VP in the South (Texas Gulf Coast)
• Brian Young serves as a regional VP in the West (North Texas)
This leadership group, in conjunction with their management teams, has regional P&L responsibilities and is tasked with driving market share gains, profitable growth and talent development/acquisition and operational excellence. The regional teams will maintain local market leadership, decision making and authority to drive Crawford’s strategic and market specific plans.
Several changes within Crawford Electric Supply’s headquarters were required to further support this new structure. These include:
• Wayland Boozer – VP Operations
• Collie Griffith – Director of Inventory for the entire footprint
• Anne Marie Greely - Director of Operations for the West and South geographies
• Mary Newton - Director of Operations for the North and East geographies
• Ryan Selman – Director of Pricing for the entire footprint
• John Tingle – Director of Digital Transformation for the entire footprint
LEDVANCE (Wilmington, MA)
Lynnette Schaeffer was appointed as the company’s new director of training, overseeing the LIGHTPOINT training program.
Pedro Sega, head of marketing U.S. and Canada, said in the press release, “With over two decades dedicated to the lighting and electrical industry, her expertise in supply chain management, product development and manufacturing will bring a lot of value to LEDVANCE and our customers. Lynnette’s passion for education and her dynamic approach to making learning engaging will be instrumental in her success at LEDVANCE.”
Schaeffer’s career began in 1998 at Van Meter Industrial, evolving through roles in global lighting firms where she focused on supply chain management, product development and smart lighting technologies. With an MBA and LC certification, she transitioned to training in 2020, applying over two decades of industry experience to educate lighting professionals.
OmniCable (West Chester, PA)
Derek Nicholson was hired as St. Louis regional manager and will lead the St. Louis commercial team. He has more than 15 years of experience in the industry. Prior to OmniCable, he was with LEDVANCE and Grainger.