UP CLOSE WITH
BEN GROTHE
Ben Grothe’s path into the lighting industry started in a sign shop. As a high school student in San Diego, Ben worked after school for his stepfather’s sign company, hauling neon to be repaired, sweeping the shop, helping local crews. Upon graduation he went full time, becoming a certified welder and operating an 85-foot crane. “I was on top of the world,” he recalled.
L M & M / / M A R C H 2 0 2 6 / / U P C LO S E
Those early years in the field gave Ben a deep, hands-on understanding of how to manage service work and a lasting respect for the crews who install and maintain. While Ben thrived in the field, he recognized that to grow his career and earning potential, he’d need to move into the office. That opportunity came when he joined his uncle’s company, B&C Enterprises, a lighting maintenance firm in San Diego. Despite initially knowing little about lighting or electrical work from a technical standpoint, Ben took on the role of service manager, leaning into his strengths: organizing teams, coordinating projects efficiently, and communicating clearly with customers. His uncle quickly spotted another talent in his nephew that Ben himself hadn’t fully embraced—sales. Though Ben once joked that being called a “salesman” was almost an insult, his deep operational knowledge and ability to explain complex concepts in straightforward language made him a natural. Customers trusted Ben because he understood their facilities, their budgets, and the value of keeping systems running reliably. The California energy crisis of the late 1990s became a turning point. As electricity rates surged and new technologies like compact fluorescents and early LEDs came to market, Ben immersed himself in energy-efficient retrofits. Converting T12s to T8s, redesigning systems for efficiency, and delivering fast paybacks to customers energized him. Trade shows became a highlight; Ben
42
loved staying on the leading edge of what lighting technology could do. “We were just geeking out on whatever was new and improved that the lighting companies came up with!” At the same time, Ben and his wife were thinking hard about where they wanted to raise their children. Though he loved San Diego, Ben had never forgotten the years he spent in Little Rock as a young child and the sense of belonging he felt in the South. They sold their house, took a pay cut, and moved to Arkansas while expecting their second child. Looking back, Ben recognizes how bold that leap was. But at the time, he was simply focused on building the life he wanted for his family. Joining Little Rock Electrical (LRE) in Arkansas, Ben helped build new business for the company by introducing the concept of planned lighting maintenance to a market that had largely never seen it. Relentlessly networking with commercial property and facility managers, Ben positioned the service as a way for customers to stabilize budgets and create predictable costs. The response was immediate and enthusiastic; Ben quickly became known as the go-to resource for lighting maintenance and retrofit solutions. Eventually he focused on the possibility of building his own professional service company that would focus on lighting. Through NALMCO, he connected with people who seemed to have perfected this service offering to the industry. He remembered, “I would talk to people like Jami Hall, Devin Grandis, and others on the proper way to do business.” Ben’s perseverance and desire “to get this done right” ultimately set the stage for his next chapter. He started his own company Lumatech in 2010 and build the Arkansas lighting management market in his own way. Lumatech grew rapidly, doing well in its first year and scaling aggressively over the next several years. That growth brought challenges. Ben was hiring faster than he could properly train,
promoting technicians into management before they were ready, and navigating the financial strain of an expanding operation. After so much growth in the first six years , “the company hit some stumbling blocks from 2017 to 2019, and we were hanging on by a thread. It was scary but we never missed a payroll.” The COVID-19 pandemic initially felt like a breaking point. Responsible for about 50 employees and their families, Ben describes nights of heavy stress and self-doubt. With guidance from his CPA, he leveraged the Paycheck Protection Program, renegotiated leases and financing, and used the downtime to strengthen Lumatech’s financial structure. When electricians were deemed essential and competitors faltered, Ben was ready, securing labor-only retrofit work while payroll was covered, giving the company the boost it needed to emerge stronger. Ben consistently adapts to industry change and looks to find new opportunities. Just before the pandemic Ben recognized that LED technology was eroding traditional maintenance contracts. So, he started to dive into EV charging, “something that turned out to be huge for us,” he added. When the pandemic hit, Lumatech added services in air purification. In 2021, Ben was invited to do some sports lighting work. He noted, “It was the biggest job I’d ever sold – putting new LED sportslighters on a football field.” Ben saw the opportunity to add sports lighting as a specialty niche for Lumatech: “It required the skills of all three of our divisions—lighting, signs and electrical.” With Lumatech about to turn sixteen years old, Ben is now able to take more time for his many activities: golfing, CrossFit, working on his five-acre property, spending time on Arkansas lakes with his wife, and riding off-road in the California desert. A resilient entrepreneur, Ben balances ambition with gratitude, viewing his journey as shaped not only by hard work and good decisions, but by a sense of “divine direction” and the responsibility to support both his family and his community. ■
UP CLOSE WITH BEN GROTHE ■ UP CLOSE WITH BEN GROTHE ■ UP CLOSE WITH BEN GROTHE ■ UP CLOSE WITH BEN GROTHE UP CLOSE WITH BEN GROTHE ■ UP CLOSE WITH BEN GROTHE ■ UP CLOSE WITH BEN GROTHE ■ UP CLOSE WITH BEN GROTHE UP CLOSE WITH BEN GROTHE ■ UP CLOSE WITH BEN GROTHE ■ UP CLOSE WITH BEN GROTHE ■ UP CLOSE WITH BEN GROTHE
By Shirley Coyle, LC