The Upper Midwest Electrical Expo came back strong last week in Minneapolis, with more than 6,000 attendees and 320 booths. While the show, held Dec. 8-9 by the North Central Electrical League (www.ncel.org), was a bit smaller than in past years, on Dec. 9 exhibitors were busy talking with the hundreds of students, apprentices and journeypersons walking the aisles.
NCEL Manager Dale Yohnke, who will be retiring after more than 30 years with the association, told Electrical Wholesaling in an email prior to the show that he expected attendance to be about 60% of its usually tally because of COVID, which typically tops 9,000 attendees. While overall attendance was down, NCEL broke an attendance record for the event’s breakfast event, where 375 attendees enjoyed a video presentation by the University of Minnesota Gophers’ head football coach, P.J. Fleck, and a very colorful in-person presentation by Dick Jonckowski, the university’s long-time sports announcer.
Electrical Wholesaling’s staff would like to wish Dale Yohnke a long and healthy retirement and congratulate NCEL’s new manager, Abby Andvik, on her promotion.