At the end of April 2020, to varying degrees, we were just over one month into a national lockdown due to COVID-19.

The economy was shutting down, yet electricians had been deemed “essential” in most jurisdictions and, by extension, their distributors. So I gathered together a panel of electrical distributors, from one coast to the other, to learn how the pandemic was affecting their operations and their ability to serve their customers.

My panelists included: Cliff Backman, Franklin Empire; Elaine Gerrie, Gerrie Electric; Greg Stephenson, Bartle & Gibson; Jason Taylor, Graybar Canada; Mathieu Legris, Electrimat; Michael Gross, Wesco; Roger Little, Rexel Canada (Nedco, Westburne, Rexel Atlantic); Tim Horsman, E.B. Horsman & Son; Tim MacDonald, Ideal Supply.

This is Part 1 of 2 of that discussion. In Part 2, I ask my panelists what pandemic-related changes, lessons learned, and the like will persist when the crisis eventually passes, and we get to our NEW normal.