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WEDCO Inc., a locally-owned and operated electrical distributor in Nevada, takes pride in supporting its customers, employees and community.
The company was founded in 1950 by Dick Elmore along with two additional partners. Elmore became the sole owner in the early 1980s. Prior to his passing in 2007, he created an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) and the company started the process of becoming employeeowned. “The ESOP has been purchasing the stock for 10 years,” President Richard Stoltz said. “Our goal is to become 100 percent employee-owned, which we hope to achieve in the coming years.”
The company’s main office is located in Reno, Nevada. It has four additional branch locations to serve northern Nevada. “Everyone who works here lives in Nevada; we are truly a Nevada company” Stoltz said, adding that WEDCO has 65 employees and three executives. Stoltz serves on the executive management team with CEO Brian Elmore and Secretary/Treasurer April Martin.
Reno was a small town when WEDCO formed in 1950, so at that time the company “did a little bit of everything,” Stoltz said. “We continue with that model. Our customer mix changes depending on the local market.”
Currently, WEDCO’s customer mix is 50 percent commercial construction, 40 percent industrial (MRO) and 10 percent residential contractors and small OEMs. “There’s not a lot of OEM business out here,” Stoltz said. “Right now, northern Nevada is growing. Gold mining is a huge part of business in northern Nevada. And Reno is going through a rebranding as a technology town. With tech giants like Tesla and Apple moving in, we have an opportunity to grow locally without having to expand geographically.”
Being the only locally-owned electrical distributor in the area makes WEDCO unique when it comes to serving customers and competing with regional and national chain distributors.
“By being small and being in front of our customers, we listen to what they’re asking for and they direct our future plans. We’re quick to adapt,” Stoltz said. “Most of our customers are local people who grew up here and live and work in the local community. They know we’re a Nevada company, not a big national company, and that’s important for us to focus on. We know who we are, what our strengths are and we focus on doing it well every single day.”
Being a mix of family- and employee-owned creates a great company culture at WEDCO. Employee-owners are empowered to make decisions on the spot for customers in order to provide the best service possible. The ESOP also makes the business an open book. “When a company is employee-owned, employees have a stake in the business and they understand how they play a role in impacting the bottom line,” Stoltz said.
The ESOP is also a great employee retention and recruiting tool for WEDCO. “We rarely lose employees because they understand the value of employee ownership,” Stoltz said. “Because we’re not dealing with constant turnover, it allows us to focus on growing the skill sets of each employee owner. That’s where the ESOP has been huge for us.”
In the more than 60 years since its founding, WEDCO has seen some shifts in the means of conducting business. “We are seeing both the manufacturers and customers requesting more out of their suppliers. Job staging and storing, bin stock management, product specialists and system integration for the exchange of data with contractors,” Stoltz said. “These are a few things that come to mind. Some of these services can be difficult to find a way to charge for while staying competitive in the market. However, many of these investments allow us to operate more effectively as well.”
With the digital marketplace expanding at breakneck speed, WEDCO also has to start to think about providing a webstore. “We’re certainly not naïve to the next-generation use of webstores to make purchases online. I would say we might have a slight industrial market business loss because of not having one,” Stoltz said. “And if we’re not losing business, we definitely have more customers asking us to match prices they see online, which can hurt margins. But, the vast majority of our customers still prefer to call in their orders and talk directly with their salesperson. It’s still a relationship business. Although we haven’t seen a significant move in this direction locally, we will continue to engage with our customers to determine what works best for them.”
IMARK membership has played a huge role in the ever-forward movement of business at WEDCO. “Every single WEDCO employee knows what IMARK is about,” Stoltz said.
“Obviously, there’s the financial piece,” he said. “What we get back from the dividends and GainShare program has an impact on our bottom line. IMARK membership also carries clout. We’re a preferred marketing group for vendors. The educational and training piece through IMARK U for employees is big. Our employees have also used IMARK member service providers to purchase vehicles at a discount. Beyond that, we’re 65 employees and three executives in a very busy day-to-day business. Programs like the IMARK Showcase allow us to get out of the day-to day and go through some very effective business planning sessions. We also get a great benefit out of our I-Net meetings and hearing what other distributors are doing in their organizations.”
WEDCO truly values community and is committed to giving back. The company supports numerous educational and youth sports programs, as well as nonprofit organizations such as the Boys and Girls Club. WEDCO works with the University of Nevada in Reno to support the Wolf Pack both on the field and in the classroom. The company also serves as a corporate sponsor of the College of Engineering at the University of Nevada and provides an endowment scholarship for electrical engineering students who attended Nevada high schools.
For more information, visit wedcoinc.com.
