Shealy Electrical Wholesalers began with one man’s idea.
In 1945, John Shealy started the business on the foundation of honoring promises. He believed in challenging each person to reach a little higher than they believed they could reach, and to venture beyond their comfort zone.

Mr. Shealy was always focused on connecting with his customers, stating, “This business may spread itself over the entire earth; it may employ more than a hundred thousand people, but we will strive to be the first choice of our customers, always providing excellent customer service.”

Electrical wholesale distribution has changed a lot over the course of 71 years. And, amazingly, this business has spread itself over the entire earth. Shealy has grown to 17 branches throughout the Carolinas with over 350 employees, and has supported projects in over 30 countries on every continent.

Throughout our years, we have had the honor of serving the communities in which we work. We have partnered with international contractors, supplied government contracts overseas, and have become a reliable source of solutions and products for our diverse customer base. Our goal has been to always do better and be better for you … ever evolving to service your needs and help you grow your business.

Our shareholders, a few partners, and I sat down not too long ago to talk about the long-term strategy for Shealy. We asked ourselves, ‘What type of future do we envision for Shealy and its employees? What do our customers need?’ Quickly after those questions were asked, we were faced with the question of ‘How will we get there?’

After exploring many options, the group decided that an ESOP (employee stock ownership plan) was the clear route for Shealy to take in order to take care of our employees, our customers, and continue the long-term legacy of our business.

When we were ready to start creating the ESOP, we began visiting electrical distributors that were already set up with that business model. Along that journey, we sought guidance from Border States Electric. Border States helped us navigate through the ESOP setup process, but eventually, a better way began to emerge. In lieu of starting an ESOP on our own, we began to consider joining their already 100% employee-owned company.

Becoming a division of Border States was an easy decision to make.

Border States Electric is one of the largest employee-owned electrical distributors in the U.S. with locations in 16 states. They serve the construction, industrial, and
utility markets. Like Shealy Electrical, Border States is an independent distributor, a member of Affiliated Distributors, and a member of the North American Association of Utility Distributors.

Even more, our two companies share the same core values based on doing what’s right for our customers, employees, vendors and our communities. We both possess a strong desire to grow, encourage innovation, and believe in the power of employee-ownership.

It has been said that “one reason people resist change is because they worry about what they might have to give up, instead of what they have to gain.”

There will be a few changes that you will see happen in the coming months. I am joining the Border States leadership team as the Executive Vice President and will be working with all of the employee-owners to make our company the best it can be. With this move, my wife and I will relocate to Fargo, ND and I will report to the CEO, Tammy Miller.

Don Masters, once the Senior VP of the Installer Market, will become the Vice President of Border States’ Southeast Region, which is made up of our former Shealy locations.

While things are changing, you have so much to gain from Shealy becoming a division of Border States. Our commitment to you will grow even stronger, and as your business grows, we will be right there … offering you more solutions, products, geographical coverage, and support than ever.

I’d say we are making John Shealy pretty proud right now … reaching a little higher than even he may have believed we could reach. And while Shealy Electrical may have been the idea of one man, it’s never been about just one man. It’s always been about family, friendship, community, and service. The connections and partnerships that we have formed with you over the decades will only continue to grow from this point forward. Our goal is to always do better and be better for you.

We are Shealy Electrical Wholesalers – A Division of Border States Electric. Employee owned and customer driven.

With you from concept to completion …

The Charlotte Metro North Carolina project management team is a group made up of Amy Howell, Charity Chaney, Julia Drayton, Kristin Remelius, and David Budnick. With a combined 53 years of electrical industry experience and 24 years of project management experience these 4 project managers and 1 project administrator strive to make sure that all project requirements are met. We manage projects involving lighting, gear, cable management, and national accounts.

Charlotte’s project team was formed to facilitate our customer’s growing project needs. Since those humble beginnings, we have developed our processes and procedures to become a primary resource to our customer’s project needs. The following will briefly touch upon some of the services we provide.

While our quote team works diligently to win the projects they quote, we typically begin managing when the project is won and with the submittal process. We create lighting, gear, and/or wire management submittal packages based on the customer’s needs. These can be created in a few different mediums including paper copies, electronic copies through email or drop box, and/or put onto compact discs. While submittals can be considered a mundane process, we consider submittals to be both our customer’s and Shealy’s calling card to the overall project process.

Once the submittals are reviewed and returned to us, if approved, we establish the project’s requirements and prepare to release the material. If they are not approved we will rework the submittals as needed and resend for approval.

Our national accounts project team works primarily the same as the construction project managers with some differences. For example, these project managers may work with site plans and the quotes department to quote projects. In addition, they may work with fixture templates that put a set fixture package together at our facility to be shipped nationwide.

While the release process sounds simple, there are many variables that can occur, and having the PM team involved helps ensure success. For example, it might be necessary to ship all of the recessed lighting housings immediately , but hold the balance of fixtures with a do not ship before date. We accommodate this type of request on a regular basis.

Our customers may also need us to kit project material for a project. In this situation we may store material in our warehouse depending on the customer’s requirement. In this scenario we have material shipped into a Shealy warehouse. The material is received, marked, and stored until such a time that the customer requests it. Typically, we have a predetermined amount of deliveries and length of storage negotiated.

When the customer is ready for material, we list out what they need for our kitting department to pull and prepare the delivery. We also facilitate staged or phase releases if needed.

During the project, we update our customers with tracking sheet updates. We also provide updates through a Shealy designed PM portal. The PM portal will show customers their orders, tracking, and invoice links to any project that is in flight. The PM portal provides real time viewing of the project status and can have multiple log ins so the customer’s team can all be on the same page.

Most projects run without much incident, but there are cases where product may arrive damaged or become defective after the initial startup. If this is the case, your project manager will be your liaison with the factory to get replacements sent out to you. If the material arrives visibly damaged, we always recommend to sign for the material as damaged on the bill of lading with the driver. That helps facilitate a smoother freight claim with the freight carrier.

Your PM will also work to return any defective material on your behalf as well as make arrangements for the material to be returned from the jobsite if needed. In a majority of the incidents we will send the defective material back through our warehouse for tracking purposes.

As a project winds down, we can create operation and maintenance manuals for the customer to close out the project. These are available upon request. This is usually the time we help set up any technician aided start ups if needed. While mainly for controls this can also include gear.

Our team is a multifunctional resource for customers. We provide a number of services from the simple and mundane, to the involved and detail oriented. Project management is a service feature our customers have come to rely on and one we continuously look to improve and expand upon.

South Carolina’s project management team was built based on an idea from our Vice President of Construction segment, Barclay Ryan. After Shealy Electrical’s acquisition of EDI in 2011, Charlotte’s Project Management team was something that our South Carolina branches wanted to emulate. With the encouragement of Barclay, two of our previous international segment employees Clay Lovelace and Cal Craig alternated weeks of training in Charlotte to make a home for Project Management in Columbia.

Charlotte and Columbia’s Project Management teams operate on the same basic fundamentals. The project management teams are with the customer throughout their whole project. This allows Shealy account managers to take on more projects. Cal and Clay used guidance from our Charlotte branch and customized our solutions based on their experiences in sales. Shealy’s South Carolina project management began in Columbia’s construction segment and has evolved to cover seven additional branches. Project management has also expanded into the industrial market with the help of Don White, Brian Bell and Fred Metz and international segment with Gregg Martin and Mike Pollock.

Today our Columbia team consists of Clay Lovelace, Tanya Semer and Amber Hendrix. Columbia PM takes a ‘no limit’ approach when implementing a project. As Clay Lovelace states, “PM allows one to interact with many departments within Shealy, including AP, AR, inside/outside sales and customer/vendor relations. While working in all of these areas you begin to gain a deeper understanding of all levels of the organization and begin to see how they all fit together.” Each day brings something new and doesn’t limit you to stay within the boundaries of your title. Days can begin with a customer visit in Charleston and end with inventory counts in our PM warehouse. With this experience, PM can help you develop an area of expertise or create a path for a future career in another division in the company.

Besides the basics: submittals, order entry, pricing, quotations, tracking, delivery and O&Ms, our project management team drives and implements customer based solutions. There are several on-site and off-site solutions to offer with the sale of a project. Highlights include our 10,000 square foot PM storage warehouse with kitting availability, job boxes, and customizable billing and shipping.

Check out a Q&A session with the South Carolina project management team HERE!

For more information on how to involve our project management teams with your job, contact your sales person today!

Rugged. Durable. Professional-Grade.

For more information, contact your Shealy Electrical sales person today!

C.M. Tucker Lumber Companies, LLC was founded in 1920 by C.M. Tucker, Sr., who firmly believed that personalcontact, honest products, and exceptional serviceequaled success. Carl Tucker didn’t know it then, but hewas building a legacy that has been handed down forfour generations.

Tucker Lumber manufactures a variety of lumber and pressure treated wood products and has been on the same site in Pageland South Carolina for almost 100 years. In the beginning, they were a small mom and pop type operation with a door and window shop and a planer mill. Their major growth began in the 1970’s when pressure treated wood began to make an appearance in the market. C.M. Tucker Lumber eased into the treating operation and that then led to deck components and remanufacturing, which is a large portion of what they do today. Carl III and his four sons, David, Mark, Paul and Andrew are currently active members of the Tucker family that run the business. Mark states that there was never any pressure to join the business but there is a certain advantage to working for yourself. There aren’t many firmly established 4th generation family owned businesses around and C.M. Tucker Lumber is a shining example of how to be successful for almost 100 years.

By the nature of the business, C.M. Tucker Lumber is naturally environmentally conscious – they are preserving wood products to make them last for many years. They own 20,000 acres of timber land and actively manage those acres for the renewable resource (they plant two trees for every one they cut down). When you talk about renewable resources, the other thing that naturally comes to mind, says Mark, is renewable energy. This is also very important to their customers, with Lowe’s being their largest account. They want to be environmentally conscious and on the leading edge of technology. Not everyone was on board with the idea of solar at first, but when the numbers came back, it was hard to deny that it made great business sense.

Shealy Electrical and Inman Solar met with Tucker Lumber in 2015 to discuss a possible solar project. Shealy had worked with Inman in the past and felt that they would be a good fit. Tucker had to decide where to put the solar install and if they wanted roof or ground mount. They operate four locations in Pageland and operate under two separate power companies: Lynches River Electric Co-op (shipping yard and new treating plant) and Duke Energy (manufacturing). They have two off site buildings – one on Lynches side and one on Duke. They elected to put the solar array on the Duke power side due to the solar rebates from Duke, and the fact that they had ample space to locate the project.

There was back and forth discussion on ground vs. rooftop mount, but part of the reason for doing this project was that they wanted to provide education to the local schoolchildren. You can’t take kids up on to a roof (really, not a good idea), so ground mount it was! They are developing a handout for the kids – one side would be from the Duke/ Solar perspective and describe how solar power works and the benefit of that. The other side would talk about sustainable forestry. They mentioned that a lot of kids in school have a bad view of lumber companies, thinking that they are cutting down all of the forests. Tucker Lumber wants them to understand that they actually replant more than they cut down. If these companies didn’t replant, they would put themselves out of business pretty quickly!

This is a relatively small solar installation at 162 kW, but it is a start and it was Duke Energy’s first major South Carolina new commercial program project (outside of residential installations). C.M. Tucker Lumber gladly played the guinea pig for Duke in helping them get up to speed on everything that needed to be done. Mark stated that Inman did a great job in working with Duke. Although there was a lot of planning in the beginning, the project itself only took about three weeks. This project will be Net Metered under Duke Energy’s DER incentive program, allowing Tucker Lumber to save roughly $2,500 per month on their electric bill.

The Duke rebate is really what made this project viable for Tucker Lumber to do. They will also receive a federal tax credit. The warranty was another factor in their decision – with a 4 ½-5 year payback and a 20 year warranty, they are 15 years to the good. It’s a great thing to be environmentally conscious and want to do the right thing, and a short payback makes it that much easier! They found a project that is economically sound, good for the environment and helps with their positive image to their customers – a win-win situation.

C.M. Tucker Lumber was already a Shealy customer, but this was their first major project together. When asked to sum up how the project went, Mark said, “The whole project went great. This was totally turnkey – it just happened. We had to dedicate zero management hours other than going to the site and taking pictures as it progressed. Working with Inman and Shealy was tremendous. No worries and painless.”

Border States Electric (BSE) has announced that James Sipe has been promoted to Strategy Enablement Director.

His new responsibilities include establishing and leading the Strategy Enablement Team. The team’s responsibilities include business intelligence, mergers and acquisitions integration, project management, continuous process improvement and repeatable process.

James joined Shealy Electrical Wholesalers in 2011 and has served as vice president of operations since June 2013. Sipe joined BSE August 1 when Shealy Electrical Wholesalers was acquired by BSE.

James, his wife Gartha and two boys; Dylan and Nick, will relocate to Fargo, ND.

BSE supplies products and services to construction, industrial and utility customers. The 100 percent employee-owned company is the eighth largest electrical distributor in the U.S. as ranked by Electrical Wholesaling magazine. BSE has more than 2,200 employees and 96 branches in 18 states. Corporate headquarters are located in Fargo, N.D.

Joe Grimaud, a retired Air Force fighter pilot, opened his first business in 1976 – a Midas Muffler Shop. Many years and many auto service businesses later, Joe’s oldest son left his position with Rockwell and took over operations for his father. Since his son had been doing such an admirable job of running the muffler business, Joe felt no desire to interrupt a good thing and let him continue in that management role. He then bought a 6 acre tract of land in Chapin, SC that held a closed grocery store. Joe thought that the land was a great real estate investment, but he needed to generate money with the facility so that he could pay the mortgage. Joe and his wife Gladys converted the facility to a high end furniture store in 1999. After only 14 months, they faced much pressure from the inundation of the market with moderately priced furniture made overseas. It was obvious that something needed to change, and Joe was introduced to a furniture liquidator for help with existing inventory.

The liquidation sale was so successful, that they decided to bring in some moderately priced furniture to continue their market trial. Based on that success, Grimaud decided to form a new corporation under a new name for the sale of moderately priced goods.

In early 2015, Grimaud was approached by a developer interested in buying the 6 acre tract for use as a shopping center, with Publix being the anchor tenant. The decision to sell this property and search for a new location was made. By this time, Grimaud’s youngest son Keith and his wife Jennifer had come to work in the store. They found a prime location right next to the interstate to relocate their furniture business. Joe and Gladys realized when Keith came to work for them; he had a natural ability and talent for the business. Keith and Jennifer soon became the owners of Chapin Furniture. Gladys Grimaud stated that Keith and Jennifer “have design in their DNA”. They have learned a lot, but from the beginning, the desire was there. Jennifer mentioned that as a child, she didn’t really play with Barbies – her passion was designing and redesigning the Barbie houses, over and over again. She joined Chapin Furniture as a buyer four years ago and is responsible for all of the layout, design and buying for the business.

When working on the design for the new Chapin Furniture location, Keith began looking into the possibility of using solar power to lessen the utility bills. It was an idea that intrigued him, but several local builders told Keith that it didn’t make sense to use solar – perhaps because they were unfamiliar with it. When Keith persisted and did more research, he learned about the incentives from SCE&G as well as federal and state incentives. He contacted several different solar providers and found Jim Woods, Director of Clean Energy for Shealy Electrical Wholesalers. Anyone that has EVER met Jim knows how passionate he is about solar. Keith said that “it seemed like a good fit – we could recoup our investment pretty quickly and we were already investing in energy efficient lighting and an energy efficient HVAC system”. All of the interior lighting is LED with timers and motion detectors.

Because of the size of the building, they knew that the energy costs were going to be substantial. And as Jennifer said, they wanted to be able to tell the “green story” too. They wanted the new facility they built to leave as small of a carbon footprint as possible. Some of their suppliers feel just as strong about this concept. . Bassett is making a new line of tables and for every one that they sell, they plant three new trees. The elder Mr. and Mrs. Grimaud had a lot of confidence in Keith and Jennifer’s decision on the solar project, even though they originally joked that they had gone to “the dark side”. The installation of the solar array was completed by Jamie Brown with Brown Electric.

There are usually obstacles with any large project, and this was no exception. The new building was already under construction when Keith met with Jim Woods. The construction superintendent wasn’t familiar with solar installations and wanted to ensure that the roof would handle the additional load per square foot from the solar panels. To overcome the builder’s uncertainty of structural integrity, Keith Grimaud hired an independent structural engineer to review the plans. By the time it was all said and done, the engineer was able to confirm the design layout of the solar panels on a rail mounting system attached directly to the standing seams of the metal roof. The rails were positioned over the structural portions of the building to accept the load.

For this 117.81 kWDC solar project, we used 462 Boviet 255w solar modules mounted on the warehouse roof with Unirac SM Series racking and 3 Solectria PVI-36TL inverters. The store’s power usage and solar offset is unknown, as this is a new construction project and there is no history to design around. However, it is estimated that the system could produce up to 70% of Chapin Furniture’s electric needs. The payback estimate is just over 4 years. They will utilize SCE&Gs incentive of $0.18/kWh for everything produced for 10 years, along with the 30% federal tax credit, $35,000 South Carolina tax credit and available MACRS accelerated depreciation.

The grand opening was Memorial Day weekend and the store received rave reviews for both the interior and exterior. This was Chapin Furniture’s first project with Shealy Electrical Wholesalers and Keith said that “Shealy has been very easy to work with. Jim is a likable guy and really easy to deal with.” When asked about his advice to others considering “going green” with solar, he said “Don’t stop just because there might be a few obstacles. Keep investigating. Educate people.” Chapin furniture is located at 660 Columbia Avenue in Chapin, South Carolina.

Just look for the Big Red Chair.

For more information, contact Jim Woods at jwoods@shealyelectrical.com