Redwood City’s systems group relocates

SAN JOSE, Calif. - The low-voltage group of an $80 million electrical contractor has relocated into new space to accommodate its growing division. Redwood City Electric, an electrical contractor that opened its doors in the early 1970s, moved its Systems Group to a much larger location, about 40,000 square feet. The building, located down the road from Redwood’s former facility, is located at the interchange of I-880 and Route 101, a major intersection that makes the facility more accessible to the company’s coverage area of Northern California. Redwood City Electric’s corporate office is located in Redwood City, Calif. “In our other facility, everyone was on top of one another,” said Bill Breyton, group leader, systems group for Redwood City Electric. Now, the company has about 30,000 square feet of office space, with the remaining 10,000 to warehouse products the systems group installs, including those from the group’s relationships with Edwards Systems Technology and Checkpoint, to name a few. The new facility will house a design and administrative staff of about 10 people and also be home to 50 more Redwood City Electric technicians and service staff, Breyton said. The systems group, which was formed in 1998, now produces about 14 percent of the company’s annual revenues, which is projected to be around $80 million in 2003, up from the nearly $60 million the company brought in for 2002. While fire alarm revenues make up about 65 percent of the Systems Group’s revenues, a growing piece is the company’s voice and data operations, which also encompasses audio visual and plasma television installations in custom homes. Currently, that is about 10 percent of the systems group revenues, while another 10 percent stems from security installations. The remainder is derived from temperature control business. One of the benefits of belonging to a large electrical contractor, Breyton said, is the breadth of services that the company can offer when bidding on large jobs. “The majority of our new opportunities are the design build arena, where Redwood City Electric is capable of offering turnkey electrical services, not only on the low voltage side, but on the high voltage side as well,” Breyton said. The dovetailing of the two different sides of electrical service gives RCE an advantage on both sides of its operations. In fact, about 50 percent of the low- voltage work comes from internal operations, Breyton said, while the other half is generated from other outside bids.