NEMRA. “It Starts with Us.” 2000+ Strong

Earlier this month the sales organizations of much of the industry gathered in Orlando for NEMRA’s 2025 Annual Conference. This gathering, the largest collection of electrical distribution professionals, represented over 2000 individuals from over 140 manufacturer and 250 sales organizations from the US and Canada. It was NEMRA’s largest conference to date.

They seemingly took over the world’s largest Marriott hotel!

Some of the highlights, aside from over 140 one-on-one booths with many being double or quad-sized booths, included:

• A contractor panel where three national contractors shared insights
• The ability to meet one-on-one with the contractors
• The ability to meet one-on-one with each of the industry’s national chains as well as AD/IESD.
• Learn from a distinguished Women in Leadership panel
• Receive a State of the Union presentation from Jim Johnson and learn about the Electrifying America initiative, which has been spearheaded by Jim Johnson’s persistence that “together is better” and a belief that the rep community is the link between manufacturers, distributors and contractors
• A presentation by Channel Marketing Group on the Manufacturer of the Future and the Rep of the Future (a copy of the slides is available upon request.)
• Presentations by TradeTech Solutions and RepFabric
• The opportunity to meet with a number of manufacturers who were actively seeking representation as well as service providers to support rep needs.
• Countless hallway meetings
• A NEMMY’s Award presentation
• And countless receptions and dinners and “Rep of the Year” award presentations.

In other words, … it was jam-packed

Session Highlights

• Contractor Panel
  • Each talked about the need for information, especially delivery information. While the concept of “Where’s My Stuff” theoretically is an element, they all stated they wanted the information specific to them, from their distributors, for their projects rather than an industry portal.
  • They say they want partnerships, “truth”, and transparency and shared that they wanted to know if their teams were not open, all felt that really, what they would want is “honesty” but none felt that they could be “direct” with management and go around lower-level contacts … if they did, “no more orders.”
  • All are seeking ways to save labor hours. One commented about using Remarcable.
  • 38-40% of a contractor’s time is “wasted” on non-installation activities.
• Jim Johnston’s Keynote / State of the Union
  • Titled “It Starts with Us” and the need for “ownership”, making choices and knowing where one wants to go.
  • Focused on leadership and innovation and the need for principals, and company leadership, to be intentional in planning for their business. Some of this ties to utilizing data to make decisions and using the assets that the association is producing to support the membership.
  • He spoke about reps being the connective tissue of the industry, helping drive collaboration throughout the channel, with manufacturers, and with each other.
  • NEMMY Awards
    • Rep Choice Award – Alan Wire
    • Manufacturer Choice Award – Apex Electrical
    • Demand Generation Award – The Agency
    • Partnership of the Year Award – Lester Sales and Legrand
  • There was a discussion with the Alliance to Electrify America, which is the collaboration between NEMRA, NECA, NAED, and NEMA. Each of the association presidents shared their input on the importance of some of the core initiatives of the Alliance – Workforce Development, Supply Chain Optimization, Grid Modernization, and Lobbying Washington (which is when tariffs were discussed.
    • The most visible accomplishment to date is that each association now has a lobbyist.
    • NAED is spearheading the Supply Chain aspect with its “Where’s My Stuff” initiative but the attendees feedback appeared to be the concept was aspirational and “too far in the future / too futuristic” to be impactful.
    • NECA appears to be doing the most regarding Workforce Development with the others focusing on training and productivity improvement initiatives.
  • There was a Women in Leadership panel with Deb Huttenberg (Mersen), Christy Tilton (Genlyte Solutions Group), Danna Stone (Graybar) and Rachel Sherwood (Ewing Foley). Decent turnout for a Wednesday (final day) early morning. It was a round robin of questions to a panel with feedback on “best practices” from these accomplished women on excelling in the electrical industry … get back to people, there are no short-cuts, empower your team, be a mentor, be curious, lead with empathy, treat people how you want to be treated, hire the best people … the traits of quality managers.

Heard Around the Conference

• Given that President Trump announced tariffs on Canada, China, and Mexico on Sunday (arrival day), they were the topic of the first day. Feedback from many was that manufacturers were not prepared for the discussions even though many believed that tariffs, at least on China, were inevitable once Trump was elected. There was discussion about “getting prepared” and inquiries about price increases vs surcharges. By the end of the conference, tariffs on Canada and Mexico were postponed.
• Those with lighting lines inquired about NEMRA Lighting and were looking forward to seeing the division evolve.
• A manufacturer commented that they offered their reps marketing funds if the rep had a dedicated marketing person. They commented that about one-third of their reps qualified, received funds, and all had sales growth.
• One, relatively small, wire manufacturer that was acquired last year reportedly terminated its reps at the conference. While all expected it to occur at some time, a number commented that they would have been satisfied if they had been told in advance so that they did not schedule the meeting (and take up their time) nor have to prepare for the meeting as if they may retain the line a little longer. They knew it was a “rent a manufacturer” arrangement, just not that the lease was being cancelled then. The manufacturer is compensating the reps through March.
• Tech, Tech and Tech. Aside from TradeTech Solutions and RepFabric, other technology companies of note at NEMRA were FlowRMS, Pull Logic and Celerity.
  • Note, Pull Logic is an interesting tool for manufacturers an reps with functionality to support cross referencing, understanding COO and how this impacts tariffs, manufacturer inventory management and more. And yes, it is AI-driven.

Overall, an information packed three days. According to reps, most meetings were good / cordial, which is to be expected as if it was major issues they should be addressed sooner.

The NEMRA theme epitomized the role of the rep, “It Starts with Us.” Without the reps initiating / supporting distributors from helping manufacturers gain awareness at the distributor, and then supporting distribution generate, consummate and deliver on the sale, to generating demand at the contractor / end-user to create brand preference for a manufacturer and opportunities for distributors, the reps are the beginning AND the connective tissue.

Congratulations to NEMRA on another successful conference.

If you attended, thoughts?

And, as a reminder, if you are a manufacturer or a rep and want a copy of the Manufacturer of the Future or Rep of the Future presentations, please email me. If you want the complete Manufacturer of the Future report, email Sue Todd at stodd@nemra.org.