ELA Partners With Slater Lighting to Cover Florida

October 7, 2022

Brian Slater, owner of award-winning Slater Lighting, based in Delray Beach, Fla., has bolstered his agency’s commercial line card by partnering with New York City-based Electric Lighting Agencies (ELA) to cover South Florida.

Founded in 1955, ELA is widely recognized as the oldest and most successful lighting manufacturers’ representative firm in the New York metropolitan area with 45 employees and two locations (New York City and Long Island).

Slater built up his agency, first with residential manufacturers such as Quoizel for the past 15 years before gradually adding commercial accounts 8 years ago, starting with Nora Lighting, which serves both markets. Slater Lighting has worked on diverse commercial projects from Sandals Beach Resort in Barbados to the Lynn Financial building and the Hyatt Place hotel in Boca Raton as well as the New River Yacht Club and Calvary Chapel in Ft. Lauderdale, among others.

Last week, Slater announced that his agency has partnered with ELA to cover the South Florida market under the new brand ELA Powered by Slater Lighting. “We’ve built a lot of good will over the years with the Slater name,” he said in keeping his agency name in the brand. In addition to the brand awareness from customers, Slater Lighting is also known in the non-lighting community for philanthropic involvement in charities such as South Florida 4 Kids, Compassion International, and Fight the New Drug.  

“There is a lot of synergy between our agencies as well as between the New York and Miami markets,” Slater explained. “A large portion of building in South Florida – roughly 25 percent – is specified in New York City.” In fact, there is so much business between the two areas that Slater joked, “South Florida is often called the sixth borough of New York. Joining forces was a no brainer.” He noted that more rep agencies are increasingly having a presence in both locations.

Partnering with ELA also brings additions to Slater Lighting’s line card, such as Current Lighting, Delta Light Group, LF Illumination, Delray Lighting, and SoftForm. “We’ve also just picked up Hubbell, which fits into our line card very nicely,” Slater said. “We’ve also added staff recently as a result of the new partnership and will continue to do so, but our core team at Slater Lighting remains the same.”