Up Close With Kevin Heid

By Shirley Coyle, LC

The first one-liner was delivered within the opening minutes of a story of returning to Rogers Electric as Senior Director of Lighting. “My favorite saying – I don’t throw rocks,” said Kevin Heid. He had left Rogers Electric after eighteen years, then spent 6 years running his own labor-only business before his return. “I don’t throw rocks because I build glass houses.”

Prior to becoming an electrician, Kevin spent four years in the Navy as an electronic warfare technician (“I shot down missiles,” he notes). After 300 days at sea his final year, Kevin searched the classifieds while his wife drove. They were headed to Atlanta.

He found temporary work as a new construction electrician, building Home Depot stores, and within a few months, was hired on by Rogers Electric. “I was trying to put the pieces together of what I was going to do. I knew electrical theory really well, but not a whole lot about application – especially in the retail or commercial environment.”

At Rogers Electric Kevin became a lead, then a foreman, getting his Master Electrician license in Georgia. Eight years into his career, the company moved Kevin into the office to dispatch electrical service and be an electrical service manager.

Rogers Electric was only a few years into their lighting business at this time. “I knew a lot about electricity but not about lighting, so I went to work with Ron Gilcrease.” Gilcrease was Rogers’ VP of Sales for lighting at the time. A former president of NALMCO, he introduced Rogers Electric to the organization.

Kevin reflected on receiving his CLMC about two years into that time, “That was about twenty years ago now! I dove into the NALMCO organization, and they’ve become some of my best friends in the world. People say, ‘Well, that’s your competitor!’ but we don’t compete with each other – we compete against a number. What number are you willing to do it for, and what am I willing to do it for, and how well can each of us do it?”

He continued, “Competing is about trying to stop each other. In this industry, it’s more about asking your buddy where the best fishing spot is. It’s about helping each other. It’s a business of partnerships, and NALMCO became a great means for having collective conversations and learning from one another.”

One thing that concerns Kevin is labor and what’s happened to the trades. “Twenty-five ago, our educators started saying everyone needed to go through college. What happened is that a void formed in the labor market because no one was going into the trades.

“How do we encourage young people to participate in trades?” he asked. “There’s nothing we can’t do as a lighting community– we’ve tackled lots of issues, so I feel like we can do anything with three things: material, equipment and time (and time means we need the right guys on the job and getting them out to do the work).”

Asked to what he attributes his success, Kevin took a long pause, then prefaced his answer by saying he knows it’s received differently by everyone. “Jesus Christ is the answer to my successes. I know it comes across as cliché, but there’s a bible sitting right on my desk over there open to a spot…and what it teaches is that when you’re doing great work, don’t get drug off your wall. Don’t let distractions pull you off the task at hand. A lot of the principles that I’ve learned biblically…those are the things that are my greatest successes. I don’t measure my success in how much money is in my bank account, who I’m hanging out with, not this goofy beard…I measure my success by my relationships and the people that we’re able to help.”

As Programs Chair for NALMCO, Kevin is now focused on a new organization called “NALMCO Gives Back.” He explained, “What I’d love to see for our next Spring Seminar is that we find a community cause/food mission and add a QR code on every registration to give ten bucks. So when we leave the beautiful city of Chicago next year, we can leave it a bit better off. It’s about recognizing what we’ve been given, and about having an impact beyond the lighting industry.”

What advice would Kevin offer to new people coming into the industry? “Know and understand your craft. Salespeople may know professional sales but may not know lighting. Manufacturers may know product well, but understanding applications is completely different. That’s why NALMCO, with all their certifications, does such a great job helping people learn and master their craft.”

“I love Bob Marley – one of my favorite lines of his is, ‘In this great future, you can’t forget your past.’ We need to honor those who came before us, [people like] Cary Mendelsohn, Ron Gilcrease, Norma Frank, Jami Hall. There are a lot of people who have been in the business for a long time – we need to give them the chance to impart their knowledge. It makes the whole environment better.”

Kevin’s list of pastimes is long. “I do a lot of work as an elder for my church. I like to play golf – not very good at it, though. I like to hunt and fish. I like to spend time with my family – got a brand-new grandbaby I’m going to see today!”

Kevin and his wife, married for 29 years, have two grown daughters. “We spend a ton of time with our kids. To us, it’s extremely important. You can leave your kids a lot of money, but we choose to leave our kids a legacy by spending time with them.”