Ruud Lighting Inc.
9201 Washington Ave., Racine
Industry: Commercial lighting fixtures, including its BetaLED division, which makes commercial LED lights for outdoor and indoor uses in the commercial markets
Employees: About 700
Racine’s Ruud Lighting Inc. is one of the handful of companies in southeastern Wisconsin that is benefiting from the rising interest in energy efficiency. The maker of commercial LED light fixtures, which it sells under its BetaLED brand, is building a 220,000-square-foot addition to its Racine facility, and had record sales in 2010.
Ruud Lighting introduced its LED lighting fixtures for the commercial market about four years ago, and has become one of the largest players in that market.
Ruud Lighting develops and sells its LED products under its BetaLED division. It makes LED lighting products in three areas – streetlights for roads and highways, exterior lighting for parking lots, parking garages, canopies for gas stations and other commercial structures, and a line of LED lights for indoor commercial applications.
Some of BetaLED’s most prominent products have been its street light fixtures, which are in place in Los Angeles, Boston, Anchorage, Alaska, and several communities in California. The city of Ouray, Colo., has converted all of its street lights to the company’s LED fixtures.
“We have the most installed LED street lights in the U.S. (of any manufacturer),” said Christopher Ruud, president of Ruud Lighting.
The company’s indoor LED lights are under the Essentia brand name, and include lighting products for offices, auditoriums, meeting rooms and other areas of commercial and office buildings.
“Areas where there are high ceilings will be some of the best applications because of the long life and zero maintenance associated with LED lights,” Ruud said.
Traditionally, auditoriums have used quartz halogen light bulbs because they are small and can be dimmed easily. LED light fixtures, which have the same capabilities or better, use about 80 percent less electricity than quartz halogen bulbs.
LED lights are more expensive than traditional high pressure sodium, fluorescent and other light sources, but last longer, use less electricity and project more light to desired areas, Ruud said.
“The technology is continuing to change, and change rapidly,” he said. “LEDs are getting brighter and more efficient.”
Ruud does not make the LED lights. Instead, the company buys its LED diode packages from manufacturers in North Carolina and California, and uses automated robots to package them into assemblies. The company’s employees then assemble and test every LED fixture.
“We outsource as much as possible in the manufacturing process,” Ruud said. “About 70 percent of our components are made in Wisconsin. That shortens our lead times. This facility is focused on assembly and distribution, which allows us to scale up and scale down quickly.”
Ruud Lighting and its divisions, BetaLED, Beta, Ruud Direct, and Kramer, are owned by the Ruud family. Alan Ruud, Christopher Ruud’s father, founded the company in 1982.
The company has more than 700 employees, and all of its operations are contained in its 500,000-square-foot facility in Racine.
When complete, Ruud Lighting’s 220,000-square-foot expansion space will be used for distribution. The company’s current distribution space will be reconfigured for additional assembly operations.
The company posted double-digit sales growth last year, when it achieved its highest sales levels. It anticipates that growth to continue through 2011, Ruud said, mostly in its LED business.
“When we’re adding assembly lines, it’s on the LED front,” he said.
Over the next several months, Ruud Lighting and its BetaLED division will introduce several new LED light products. Those include a new line of interior lights for the office market under its Essentia brand, and a new, redesigned street light model that will be introduced this summer.
“It will be a slimmer type of product that will mount differently,” Ruud said. “And it will have a longer life. It uses the next generation of chip technology (for its LED diode).”
