Summit Electric Supply Co. Inc. is a privately held, independent wholesale distributor of industrial electrical equipment and supplies. The company is headquartered in Albuquerque, New Mexico where it was founded in 1977.
Summit provides electrical equipment and supplies and supply chain solutions to electrical professionals, contractors, project managers, engineers, and others working on commercial, industrial, residential, marine, or export projects. Summit also provides electrical materials and services to contractors for general maintenance, repair, and operations (MRO); original equipment manufacturers (OEMs); and engineering, procurement, and construction (EP&C) professionals.
The company ranked 17th on Modern Distribution Management's 2019 list of top electrical distributors based on 2018 revenue of $505 million.
Summit has 25 service centers in the United States – located in New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma – and a service center in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. It also has three global divisions that support specific industries and specialized project requirements. The company's international sales division and EP&C division are located in Houston, Texas. Its marine division is in New Orleans, Louisiana.
History
1977 to 1987
Summit Electric Supply Co. Inc. was incorporated on May 11, 1977 in the state of New Mexico by its original officers Victor Jury Sr., president; David Meredith, vice president and general manager; and Victor Jury Jr., vice president. The elder Jury had previously worked with Meredith at Graybar Electric Co. Jury retired in 1976 after working 28 years at Graybar. Meredith was a former branch manager for the company.
Jury, who frequently spoke with Meredith about starting a business together, talked his son into joining him and Meredith in the new business. As a teenager, the younger Jury sold light bulbs supplied by his father door-to-door, then worked in an electrical contractor's shop before becoming an electrician himself.
The Jurys and Meredith considered several locations for their business and settled on founding the company in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The co-founders figured “a service-oriented distributor could scrape its way into the market and compete against bigger companies,” the younger Jury said in a 1987 article in the Albuquerque Journal Business Outlook.
Summit opened its first service center with five employees on August 15, 1977. By the year's end, Summit's sales totaled $408,000.
In 1979, Summit opened a second location in Grants, New Mexico then moved into a new headquarters building the following year. After purchasing a branch of Cummins Utility Supply Co. in 1983, Summit opened another location in Farmington, New Mexico. That same year the company also took its first Just-in-Time (JIT) systems contract with the Rio Rancho, New Mexico facility of international chip manufacturer Intel Corp.
In a JIT systems contract, distributors are required to deliver specified products to their customer's facility within 24 hours; in turn, the customer agrees to purchase all of their materials exclusively from that distributor. By 1986, Summit also had JIT systems contracts in place with Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Other customers included Los Alamos National Laboratory, the City of Albuquerque, Albuquerque Public Schools, and the University of New Mexico.
By the end of the 1987 fiscal year, Summit's 10th year in business, Summit had 76 employees in three locations and company sales were $15.7 million. That year, Summit introduced the 30-Second Counter Service Guarantee® that said customers would receive counter service within 30 seconds or receive a Summit Buck® worth $5 toward their purchase. The company also began expanding its operations into Texas and opened its first Texas branch in Dallas, which originally operated under the name Sierra Electric Supply.
1988 to 2008
Co-founder Victor Jury Sr. relocated to Summit's Fort Worth branch when it opened in 1988 and announced his retirement in 1990. The younger Jury became Summit's president and CEO. Co-founder David Meredith announced his retirement in 1999.
Summit first appeared in electrical distribution industry rankings in 1988 when Electrical Wholesaling magazine ranked Summit 173rd on its list of the top 250 U.S. electrical distributors.