Florida Agencies to Merge

June 17, 2009
Two major electrical manufacturer rep agencies in Florida have announced plans to join forces. Effective June 1, GCA Electrical Lighting, Tampa, and Electrical

Two major electrical manufacturer rep agencies in Florida have announced plans to join forces. Effective June 1, GCA Electrical Lighting, Tampa, and Electrical Marketing Services, Altamonte Springs, will operate as GCA-EMS, based in Tampa.

Principals of the new electrical manufacturers representative organization are John Gunn, Jamey Yore and Joe Tumlin.

In announcing the merger, Gunn said, “These are indeed challenging economic times, and we feel now is the perfect opportunity to merge the two businesses covering all the contractor/industrial segments of Florida including OEMs, MROs, commercial and domestic exporters. This decision brings together companies that are philosophically alike that will serve the Florida electrical marketplace in a way no other agency has previously.”

The new organization will cover the traditional Florida contract territory plus maintain a large presence with the domestic exporters in south Florida, as well as the Caribbean Basin.

GCA, founded in 1988, has represented manufacturers in both the commercial and industrial markets. EMS, founded by Joe Yore in 1983, was purchased by his son Jamey in 2005.

Gunn will serve as president; Yore, vice president-industrial; and Tumlin vice president-commercial. David Morrison will head the commodity department, Galen Strannigan, former Florida district sales manager for Thomas & Betts, will serve as industrial sales manager, and Robin Conway, former Southeast sales manager for Crescent/Stonco, will lead the newly established lighting division. GCA-EMS also will have 10 inside sales people and two distinct and separate outside sales teams.

“One of the opportunities we saw in making this decision was our ability to shed brick-and-mortar operations and reduce back-office expenses” said Gunn. “Both agencies have warehouses and will be closing the EMS warehouse in Orlando during the summer and integrating that operation into our 60,000-square-foot Tampa Distribution Center. EMS will be selling their existing office building, but will maintain a presence in Orlando in a smaller rental office. Part of our opportunity was to build off the foundation that Joe Yore (the founder of EMS) established over the last 25 years.”