Direct & Current

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 2 of 2 of that discussion. In Part 1, I ask my panelists how the pandemic was affecting their operations and their ability to serve their customers.

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.

There’s no shortage of both information and misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic, so how do we separate the good from bad? The legitimate from the bogus?

How do we keep safe our construction sites, and the employees work in them?

We can all use the best advice possible during this crisis, so went straight to someone “in the know”— Tom Mackay, who recently joined the Electrical Contractors Association of Ontario as Health & Safety Director.

He is a Canadian Registered Safety Professional and National Construction Safety Officer. Tom has also held the position of Director of Health, Safety & Environment at a high-voltage electrical construction company, and worked at the Ministry of Labour as an Occupational Health & Safety Inspector and as a Provincial Offences Officer.

Tom joins Electrical Business Magazine’s Anthony Capkun for a discussion about COVID-19, where we talk about facts and myths about the novel coronavirus and—perhaps most importantly—best practices for contractors that shows their due diligence in keeping their teams as safe as possible on the job.

NOTE: The COVID-19 situation continue to evolve rapidly. Information changes almost daily. The content of this conversation should not be relied upon or construed as legal advice.