More than 500 people are expected to celebrate Western Extralite’s 75th anniversary at a casino-themed event and trade show on Oct. 18 at Harrah’s Casino in North Kansas City, Mo.. Some 300-400 customers and 86 vendor representatives are expected to attend. The event will feature entertainment, food and beverages, a chance to win prizes including a trip to Las Vegas, and a trade show featuring 36 manufacturers and free samples.
The third generation family-owned, full-line, full-service electrical and datacomm products distributor has 239 employees at its 17 locations in Missouri and Kansas. One of the largest independent distributors in the Midwest, Western Extralite has more than $10 million in inventory housed in 1million cubic feet of warehouse space, and on-demand access to more than 13,000 electrical and datacomm products.
In 1938, when the company was founded, lighting required reflectors on the outside of a bulb, like an old flash camera. Western Extralite launched by selling the first commercial inside-reflector light bulb, which was lined with silver to reflect light.
Named by the National Association of Electrical Distributors as the 2012 “Greenest of the Green” of all the electric distributors in the nation, Western Extralite has also been awarded gold and silver sustainability awards by the KC Industrial Council. Western Extralite made the largest single solar investment by any company in Missouri up to June 2011, installed the Midwest’s first solar wall in its Manhattan, Ks. facility, built the first private LEED certified building in Lawrence, Ks., and, retrofit its Kansas City headquarters with high efficiency lighting operated by occupancy sensors that cut its warehouse electric bill by 77%.