"If I knew how difficult this was, I would have never done it," says Landgren. "My biggest asset was that I wasn't that smart. I worked hard to make this happen."

Landgren began his career in the electrical distribution business right out of high school in 1973. He started in the warehouse and worked his way up to general manager of a family-owned Chicago distributor.

Realizing that he had reached his growth potential, Landgren opened Sunrise Electric Supply in 1986 with one employee in a 2,000-square-foot building.

"I was a one-man band," he recalls. "There was me and a driver. We filled orders, cut wire, stocked shelves and made the deliveries. Thank God for cell phones. I had a car phone in my truck which was forwarded to me while I was making deliveries."

Landgren welcomed whatever product lines manufacturers allowed him to represent. His overhead was low, his margins were tight, and he was willing to work around the clock to get and keep customers. "What saved us is there is always some manufacturer who wants to break into Chicago. All I had at the time was the early service," he says. I didn't have any money, I didn't have any lines. All I had was my friends, and they helped us out."

Sunrise moved into a 5,800-square-foot facility two years later. This allowed the company to grow into a $15 million business in 10 years. Landgren attributes much of the success to the people he was able to attract and keep. "We have people who know this business," he adds. "I have three guys in my office with over 20 years experience, and the oldest one is 46."

Now the company is poised for serious growth. But Landgren wants to proceed at a manageable pace. "The only way to make more money is to do more business," he says. "But we have to do it smart. We can't lose sight of what got us where we are, and that is customer service."

Landgren keeps no secrets when discussing his company's steady and profitable growth. "I would like to give you some magic formula, but what worked for us was that we just worked hard," he says.

The Electrical Distributor, November 1999, www.tedmag.com
Mike DeFilippo is a contributing editor and photographer based in St. Louis, Mo.