Eaton Execs Offer Insight into Plans for Spin-Off of Lighting Business

May 23, 2019

Eaton Corp.’s lighting business continues to invest in R&D as the unit prepares for a spin-off later this year.

Curt Hutchins, who moved over from the hydraulics unit to group president of Eaton Lighting Division earlier this year and manages the company’s IPO, said Eaton Lighting plans to unveil more than 100 new products this year after introducing 85 new products last year. Hutchins and Kraig Kasler, the unit’s president, gave a news briefing to a group of business press editors at Lightfair 2019 in Philadelphia on May 22.

Kasler said the company’s lighting business has three core areas of focus:

Contractor-oriented lighting products designed for ease of installation and “stock-and-flow” products for electrical distributors for common lighting applications.
Specification-grade products for higher-end applications.
Connected lighting products, the smallest but fastest-growing piece of the business.

Another Eaton executive said today’s lighting market is split pretty evenly between contractor/distributor-oriented products and specification-grade products. Hutchins said today’s lighting business reminds him of the consumer products industry — where he held several executive posts before joining Eaton — because of the rapid pace of innovation. Eaton announced the spin-off of its lighting business, which generated $1.8 billion in revenues back in March. The company had acquired the lighting unit of Cooper Industries in 2012.

About the Author

Jim Lucy | Editor-in-Chief, Electrical Wholesaling & Electrical Marketing

Over the past 40-plus years, hundreds of Jim’s articles have been published in Electrical Wholesaling, Electrical Marketing newsletter and Electrical Construction & Maintenance magazine on topics such as electric vehicles, solar and wind development, energy-efficient lighting and local market economics. In addition to his published work, Jim regularly gives presentations on these topics to C-suite executives, industry groups and investment analysts.

He launched a new subscription-based data product for Electrical Marketing that offers electrical sales potential estimates and related market data for more than 300 metropolitan areas. In 1999, he published his first book, “The Electrical Marketer’s Survival Guide” for electrical industry executives looking for an overview of key market trends.

While managing Electrical Wholesaling’s editorial operations, Jim and the publication’s staff won several Jesse H. Neal awards for editorial excellence, the highest honor in the business press, and numerous national and regional awards from the American Society of Business Press Editors. He has a master’s degree in communications and a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Glassboro State College, Glassboro, N.J. (now Rowan University) and studied electrical design at New York University and graphic design at the School for Visual Arts.