190609 SCG Newsletter FNL2 - Flipbook - Page 2
More Than Lights And Poles
How It All Began
We started out as a company making round grey utility poles
in a small building located in Burlington, Ontario; today we
comprise six operating companies in five geographic locations
across North America making a diverse product offering that
truly is more than lights and poles. But as we sit here today,
the question is “Where do we go from here”? To answer this,
I must first reflect on where we started and the path that lead
us here today. Our history and the people involved in it have
helped to shape our company and its core values into the
successful organization it is today.
From our start as a precast manufacturer of grey light poles for
the local Ontario market, we realized that if we wanted to grow
the company, we needed to expand both our product offering
and our geographic footprint which led to the acquisition of
Barratt Concrete Poles in 1981. Barratt was our first foray into
the world of decorative poles and lighting, providing the path
for our growth over the next 25 years. In 1986, we acquired
King Luminaire; a small lighting company in Willoughby, Ohio.
Through the hard work of our people we have been able
to transform a small regional company into a leading North
American supplier of ornamental decorative lighting. The
partnership of King Luminaire lights and StressCrete spun
concrete poles propelled our growth for the next decade and
created the demand that lead us to develop a greenfield site
in Northport, Alabama into our second concrete pole plant in
1995, further expanding our geographic footprint into North
America. It was these same factors that positioned us to open
a third concrete pole facility on a greenfield site in Atchison,
Kansas during the heart of the great recession in 2008. Both
facilities have successfully expanded the market of spun
concrete utility and decorative poles across North America.
As we transitioned out of the recession in 2010, we were
positioned as the oldest and largest concrete pole manufacturer
in North America plus a major leader in the ornamental lighting
market. The winds of change were blowing through the lighting
industry around this time with the introduction of LED causing a
major disruption within the industry. It was at this time that we
saw the change on the horizon and moved to position ourselves
to take advantage of it, which leads us to this exciting path of
where we are going.