And you thought your job was hectic?
From overseeing multiple projects at a time, interfacing with manufacturers and helping contractors increase efficiency to ensuring the accuracy of design specifications, training team members and more, the life of a switchgear department head is a fast-paced and critical arm of a distribution firm that requires its representatives to possess in-depth knowledge, experience and precise organizational skills. In the following article, IMARK Now captures a day in the life of a switchgear department head as seen through the eyes of several of the industry’s busiest and most successful professionals. Read on as they offer a behind-the-scenes look at the ins, outs, rewards and challenges that make up their typical day.
IMARK NOW: How did you get involved with your current job and how long have you been doing it?
David Collis, sales manager, Inline Electric Supply in Birmingham, Alabama: After a 30-year career with Siemens Power Distribution as a construction salesman, I was approached by Inline Electric Supply about coming over to the distribution side of the business. With the continued developments in codes and new power equipment, they felt that I could serve as a resource for the company as a whole. Inline had the vision to become a full stocking distributor of switchboards and panelboards and 10 years later we stock switchboards up to 2000A and panelboards up to 1200A.
Jim Lawson, corporate gear manager, Shepherd Electric Supply in Beltsville, Maryland: For 10 years, I was an electrician and held six master licenses. Realizing that I didn’t want to climb ladders for the rest of my life, I prepared a resume and sent it out to companies looking for estimators or project managers. One of the resumes resulted in a call from an electrical distributor in Baltimore looking for a switchgear salesman. Thirty-six years later, I’m still selling switchgear and working for an electrical distributor in Baltimore. I started with Dorman Electric in Baltimore for four years prior to its sale, was with Maurice Electric for 24 years prior to its sale and have been with Shepherd for eight years.
Nick Singleton, switchgear specialist, HESCO-Hicks Electric and Utility Supply in Doraville, Georgia: I started in electrical distribution after college and have spent 24 years in electrical distribution and 10 years as a master unrestricted electric contactor for a total of 34 years in the industry.
IMARK NOW: What are the primary job responsibilities of the switchgear support team and what kinds of projects do you handle?
Lawson (Shepherd): Shepherd employs 16 “gear” specialists and has a gear team in three of its locations. Most of our team members have been working with switchgear for the better part of their career. As the manager, I’m responsible for communicating with the management of both our partners and Shepherd. Everyone in the department has the same responsibilities, which include quoting, negotiating, purchasing and project management. The Baltimore/Washington market is a commercial construction, low-bid market with no industrial base; we see projects that consist of mixed-use, data centers, educational and medical facilities, government, military and core/shell office buildings. Our department averages 325 bids per month and gets involved with a fair amount of design assist and budgeting. We try to look into every aspect of the job so that we know the project better than our competition and can help customers understand the bill of material.
Collis (Inline): Our switchboard sales group is set up as a small group scattered over a couple of our locations, using more of a pool system in lieu of direct assignments to better support our company as a whole. This group covers both quick-ship opportunities as well as quoting new projects. Our primary sales staff in my location has six people that cover all aspects of a job, from power to lighting and miscellaneous. While our primary specialty is commercial and government, we’ve also done multi-million-dollar industrial projects and cover just about everything. With 30 years of experience with a power manufacturer, I’ve become the person people turn to when they’re faced with discontinued or antiquated equipment; I have catalogues from multiple manufacturers dating back decades.
Singleton (HESCO): There’s only me in the department and we handle all aspects of switchgear projects, from RFQs, quotations and project management to the operations and maintenance process. We cover all aspects of electrical construction projects small to large, from less than $1,000 to more than $15 million.
IMARK NOW: In your opinion, what kind of background/knowledge/experience is important for people to do this job well and find it satisfying?
Singleton (HESCO): The optimal candidate has a working knowledge of inside/outside sales and project management, anticipates customer needs and is very responsive and has a strong knowledge of all manufacturers’ products.
Collis (Inline): If someone can be self-motivated, organized, computerliterate and have at least somewhat of a technical mindset, they can learn and grow over time if they’re given the right tools, atmosphere and team around them. It’s important to have at least a basic knowledge of electrical systems, though expertise in switchgear is something that will develop over time. It’s not until someone’s been in the midst of our industry that they really start to understand switchgear; hands-on involvement makes a huge difference and it’s about being able to navigate and absorb information as you bid projects and attend factory trainings and lunch and learns.
Lawson (Shepherd): We’re mostly a department of baby boomers and understand the immediate need for a plan to attract the next generation of switchgear specialists. We’ve tried the college recruitment of engineers with little success. Our best candidates have been current employees working in sales positions and employees of electrical product manufacturers. We really need individuals with an understanding of electrical products and construction. With little or no factory training available, distributors, IMARK and NAED are the primary sources of training for our future employees.
IMARK NOW: What key expectations do electrical contractors have for your team and how have they changed in the past 3-5 years?
Collis (Inline): Without a doubt,electrical contractors are relying on distribution more, but it’s no surprise—the capabilities and complexity of switchgear have grown tremendously, paralleled by the changes in codes and standards. The time between release of drawings by a design team and bidding has shrunk dramatically, to say nothing of the near-breakneck speed of some of these projects. We’ve found that a significant portion of our growth has been tied to our willingness to shoulder more of the burden for our electrical contractors, from the project management to technical expertise and troubleshooting. They’ve seen that we view ourselves, the manufacturers and the contractors as a unified team. A successful project is good for everyone; a problem is no single person’s problem, but something for all of us to rectify.
Lawson (Shepherd): Like distributors, contractors are looking for ways to remove cost and increase profitability and expect distributors to take certain activities off their plates. We’re now quoting jobs three or four times and offering different options and bills of materials, as well as bringing material into our warehouse and delivering with our trucks at specific times. We provide jobsite visits to inspect existing equipment and determine what’s needed for adding breakers or sections. We also assist them in layouts of substations, switchboards and busduct. Electrical contractors used to have people to do this work, but they’ve either retired or determined that it’s now the distributor’s responsibility to ensure that everything goes together. It seems that today if breakers or ratings are wrong, material won’t fit or components don’t go together easily, it’s the gear department’s problem.
Singleton (HESCO): Customers expect me to bring to their attention any errors I see on a drawing, fix them, help in their design-build project and offer cost savings.
IMARK NOW: What do you find most fun/interesting and most difficult/challenging about your job?
Lawson (Shepherd): Technology is changing electrical distribution equipment at such a rapid pace that it’s become difficult to keep up with every new advancement taking place. At the same time, that’s made our industry extremely attractive and interesting to those who like the digital age. It’s no longer a product that’s either on or off; we now have more information available to us from breakers, transformers and meters than we know what to do with. We also have information that we can share with customers to show all the functionality now available in gray boxes. These new products are truly being embraced by the engineering community as well as data centers, hospitals, government facilities and high-tech retail.
Singleton (HESCO): I enjoy solving problems and the opportunity to work on different types of projects every day. The most difficult part of the job is dealing with outside and inside sales people who don’t have enough knowledge or experience as well as lastminute RFQs and missed ship dates.
Collis (Inline): The rapid pace of projects represents both the most fun and most challenging part of my job. Slow times no longer exist, as there’s always something to be done. I find it amazing how many projects I can have going on at any given time, paralleled by bidding that many projects again nearly every week. The continued development of switchgear and the increasing variety of uses that design teams find for it on projects have been interesting to watch. It’s funny that the rapid pace of switchgear development has also made me—as an “old-timer” in this industry—more valuable as our customers have been confronted by dated switchgear that, at times, is older than they are.
IMARK NOW: What are the most important things your suppliers can do to support your team?
Singleton (HESCO): We want them to provide answers and be quick to respond so that we can be the most knowledgeable and cost-effective distributor in Atlanta.
Collis (Inline): The rapid pace of jobs means that the contractor, and thereby the distributor, is experiencing increasing pressure to get material onsite. Delays of even a week can have a great impact and when these delays inevitably occur, being proactive about a problem, even if it means facing a contractor’s wrath, is much better than waiting for them to call you and then having to react. We need our manufacturer partners to focus on projects beyond just the order being entered and dated; until it’s onsite, installed and functioning, the project isn’t complete.
Lawson (Shepherd): We look to our suppliers as partners and try to emphasize the investment we have in supporting them. I’d like to see gear manufacturers evaluate their distributors not only by sales and stock but also by the amount of resources we have in supporting them. I’ve long been a supporter of manufacturers having a tiered franchise with distributors—if a distributor doesn’t have a qualified gear department to support project business, then they’re limited to stock and small jobs with panels and transformers; they wouldn’t be permitted to quote large jobs consisting of switchgear, substations or busduct.