An Interview with John Hartman

Executive Vice President and General Manager of the Acuity Brands Commercial Group

On Tuesday, July 17, John Hartman, executive vice president and general manager of the Acuity Brands Lighting Commercial Group, and Carl Coppola, founder of Mark Architectural Lighting, addressed Mark employees during an afternoon meeting following the announcement that Acuity Brands Lighting had acquired the specialty lighting company.

Your humble editor had a conversation with John Hartman of Acuity Brands Lighting to discuss the acquisition of Mark lighting.

I asked him about the comment in the press release by Acuity Brands President & CEO John Morgan, where Mr. Morgan states, “Mark’s success in the New York metro area can be replicated across the country.” It was my belief that Mark was successful in New York because of their close relationships with New York specifiers, so how would that transfer to areas like San Francisco, where Mark has no relationship with those specifiers. Mr. Harman indicated that, in addition to the strong relationship with specifiers, Mark Lighting’s products have highly specifiable features. Acuity Brands will use their existing channels to market and promote those specifiable products to the lighting designers across the country. He went on to say that Mark would not have had great relationships if they did not have great products and it is those products that will now have access to a nationwide audience.

Further, he said that the acquisition really complements what they are doing in New York with the Center for Light+Space. It gives the Acuity Brands sales force more products to take to the specification community.

In addition, Mr. Hartman told us that Mark offers a very solid manufacturing process at their Edison, NJ plant and Acuity plans to keep that manufacturing in place. Scott Coppola, who was the President of Mark Lighting will stay on and run the business under his new title of Vice President and General Manager. Scott will report to Chuck Meteer, Senior Vice President of Specialty Products. We learned that Acuity Brands has recently transitioned their businesses into two businesses: volume business and specialty business.

When asked how does Acuity Brands keep the entrepreneurial spirit of Mark now that it is part of a large conglomerate, Mr. Hartman further explained this specialty business strategy. “Chuck is charged with delivering the assets of a large company to these smaller entities and empowering these companies to manage the spirit which first made them successful,” he said. He elaborated further saying companies such as Mark Lighting need different latitudes, and different metrics for measurement. Acuity Brands will provide that—while delivering the resources and strength which Acuity Brands provides.

I asked Mr. Hartman in many different ways throughout our conversation about the sales price of the business but Acuity Brands policy was not to disclose the sale price. We do know that Mark Lighting has annual sales of $22M and we are told that this $22M is a recent number as Mark Lighting has grown quite fast over the past three years.