5 minute read
Up Close with Robert Coy
By Shirley Coyle, LC
The idea of going to trade school to become an electrician piqued Robert Coy’s interest during his junior and senior years of high school. Plus, he reasoned, there would be good money.
After graduating, he landed a job with Osram’s Sylvania Lighting Services (SLS), working as a remote technician in Ohio. He recalled, “We repaired everything from neon signs to deli cases, getting into all kinds of lighting from preventative maintenance to service calls. It really broadened my knowledge.”
Osram Sylvania required all their technicians to get certifications. “That’s how I got introduced to NALMCO I found it fascinating, kept learning about lighting and getting certificates throughout my career.” He now holds three NALMCO certifications in addition to the LC and CLEP certifications.
Looking for opportunities to advance – and get out of the snow – Robert followed his girlfriend out to Arizona; SLS had a big base in Phoenix. Robert had a dedicated route of Safeway grocery stores. Wanting to get into the office and into management, he went back to school for an accounting degree. He was promoted to a project coordinator, then grew into area operations as a project manager.
Robert was later tapped to join Midstate Energy, with the mandate to grow their lighting work as a newer ESCO. Over time the company bought several other companies, bringing them all under one umbrella as Veregy.
Rob has been Veregy’s Director of Lighting for many years until recently taking on a new role as Project Developer for Multi-ECM projects. An Arizona-based ESCO, Veregy focuses on K-12 throughout the country, as well as higher education and municipalities. Robert noted, “In Arizona, we have our own in-house labor for HVAC, plumbing, electrical lighting and solar. We’re working to grow that model across the country.”
He recalled one of his biggest challenges, just after Midstate Energy made their largest sale, “We were still selling 28W T8 retrofits. Just after signing with one of the biggest school districts for their forty-three K-12 campuses, my lighting rep came to me and showed me their newest version of T-LEDs. I had not yet been able to make T-LEDs work for the shorter paybacks schools required. I crunched the numbers, found it could work with the energy savings (28W down to 12W) and the lower cost based on volume!”
“My pitch to my boss: ‘I know we just sold this as our largest contract ever, but I’ve got this new product – that we’ve never used – that I want to sell to our customer … oh, and by the way, it will cost millions of dollars more!’” he joked. “We presented it to the customer, and they loved the idea of being one of the first school districts in Arizona to go all LED. We got the second largest ever lamp order in North America – over 160,000 LED lamps. It was a big leap of faith and turned out to be a great success. We are now on something like phase eight with that same customer, doing various upgrades.”
Reflecting on concerns about the industry, Robert offered, “The speed at which technology keeps changing has been a problem for maintenance. Especially with luminaire level lighting controls – sensors become obsolete, programming changes. Trying to find technology that will be there for five or ten years is the biggest challenge.”
To mitigate these challenges, Rob tries to stay with larger brands rather than “jumping from brand to brand.” He explained, “You become a partner together, then they will be there to help be a solution to the problem –both with the material and cost.”
Rob offered his formula for success: “Hold yourself accountable and deliver on your promises – that’s helped me get here. There will be hiccups along the way. It’s how you react to those issues, how you rectify the challenges. The call-to-action response leads to a satisfied customer that will work with you in the future, because they know you’ll be there.”
“Our motto is leave it better than what you found it…working in a teacher’s classroom is like working in their living room. We’re in it for selling multiple phase projects. We’re not only there when challenges arise, but even after that project is completed and five years later. They can still call me, and I’m there to offer solutions.”
Asked for his advice for new people coming into the industry, Rob is firm, saying, “Find a mentor early on. Learn about the company, not just your immediate position. You also want to set yourself up for personal future growth within that company.”
“My mentor, Scott Conner (GM at Veregy at the time), really shaped my outlook on leadership and customer satisfaction. I knew the technology inside and out; Scott helped me develop leadership style and skills.”
“Starting out as a PM, I had an HVAC rooftop unit fail. I was telling Scott that we need to get a tech out. He said, ‘No, this is a great learning opportunity –how about me and you go out to fix it.’ This was the number two guy in the company, in dress slacks and a nice, white button-down, breaking out the tools and showing me how to fix an HVAC unit for the first time!”
“I took that to heart – as an approach when I was still PMing, if production wasn’t where I wanted to see it that day, I’d throw on a toolbelt and challenge the guys, ‘Let’s see who can do the most fixtures in the next two hours. If you beat me, I’ll buy you lunch.’”
What does Rob do for fun? “We love to travel – my youngest son, a wrestler since grade school, now wrestles at the college level. We get to see a lot of the country that way. We also try to take one trip a year out of the country so we can explore the world and see new places!”
