GE Lighting, a unit of GE Appliances & Lighting, continues a reshaping effort designed to better serve customers and enable profitable growth with the establishment of GE Lighting Solutions, a combination of its light-emitting diode (LED) systems operation, Lumination, based at GE Lighting's world headquarters in Cleveland, and its commercial and industrial fixture group, GE Lighting Systems in Hendersonville, North Carolina.

“We're building on the investment GE has made in our business and the reshaping that's been underway for a period of years,” says Michael B. Petras, Jr., president and CEO of GE Lighting. “This change reflects our strategy to serve as an industry-leading solutions provider for the rapidly growing indoor and outdoor lighting fixture segments that use LED systems and other energy-efficient lighting technologies.”

David Elien, previously president and CEO of Lumination, now serves as president and CEO of GE Lighting Solutions, while Paul Morse, formerly president of GE Lighting Systems, leads commercial efforts as vice president of sales and Hendersonville site leader. Elien has more than 10 years of strategic business development experience and has grown GE's LED business by more than 30 percent over the past five years. Morse has more than 20 years of commercial lighting experience, including management of GE's development of LED-based outdoor lighting fixtures. The full integration of the businesses will be completed in the first half of 2010.

“The value of energy-efficient lighting solutions has never been more apparent to businesses and consumers,” adds Petras. “Through GE Lighting and our new GE Lighting Solutions unit, we'll continue to provide innovative GE-quality solutions for customers who want to optimize energy efficiency and pursue energy cost savings, while having less of an impact on the environment.”

Combination capitalizes on competitive advantages
Lumination began as a GE joint venture called GELcore in 1999. Its experience is in LED system development and applications such as signals, signage, architectural, display and general lighting. GE Lighting Systems, which traces its roots to late 19th century Lynn, Massachusetts, has maintained its headquarters, manufacturing and warehouse facilities in Hendersonville, North Carolina since 1955. Its commercial channels, sales representative network and infrastructure will be invaluable to GE Lighting Solutions as it responds to customer demand for energy-efficient outdoor LED lighting.

“We like how GE Lighting Solutions positions us to do even more for customers right out of the gate,” notes Petras. “We have a head start in these market segments because we're combining our specialized LED application expertise and our penchant for quality with our outdoor fixture heritage and established distribution.”