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history
1993-98: beginnings
In 1993 Night Light, Inc. was developed as a low voltage (12 volt) landscape illumination company by nationally known landscape
illumination designer Mitch Beiser. Night Light, Inc. started as an offshoot from a line voltage (120 volt) company,
that Mitch started 10 years prior. Night Light was to take advantage of the increasing popularity and cost effectiveness
of low voltage lighting for new and younger landscapes. Typically new landscape installations do not require the power
capabilities that mature landscapes do. We
determined that all of the existing low voltage products on the market were inadequate for the level of quality we had
come to expect in the line voltage system that we had been designing. Therefore, we designed our own fixtures, sockets,
wire and transformers to have a complete low voltage
system second to none.
In 1995 Night Light, Inc. was incorporated to provide landscape illumination design, installation and maintenance
services to their customers. A sales staff and an installation crew were trained to begin to install the designs that were
sold. The company continued to grow over the next 3 years.
In 1998 Dean MacMorris joined the company as vice president of sales and marketing. With more than 17 years in landscape
project management and sales management experience with several top landscape design build companies, Night Light was poised
to take on even stronger growth within the landscape industry. Very good growth was achieved for the next three years. We had
two crews on the road doing nothing but low voltage installations.
2001: incorporation
In 2001 it soon became apparent that the right approach to a great landscape illumination design company was to offer both
types of systems (12 volt or 120 volt) and let the landscape itself determine which was the proper system. Quite often it is
a combination of 12 and 120 volt.
Since there was confusion over two landscape illumination companies, Mitch & Dean decided in
2001 that only one name, Night Light, Inc., would be used. From that point on Night Light would perform all services low voltage
and line voltage. This nearly doubled the volume in 2001. Numerous relationships were developed with many of the top landscape
companies in the Chicagoland area. This allowed us to offer our customers significantly better landscape illumination.
In 2002 Dean became a co-owner in Night Light, Inc. with Mitch Beiser. The ease of handling all landscape services under the
Night Light, Inc. name increased the company visibility and sales continued to grow. This was also the year when the Preventative
Maintenance Program (PMP) was launched. This program was developed because of popular demand from our customers. They wanted to
have a service that would annually maintain the lighting system automatically. So the PMP was developed to clean
all fixtures and lenses, replace all lamps, selectively prune trees, shrubs and perennials to ensure proper lighting effects,
adjustment of fixtures to match original design intent, inspection of all system components and an extended warranty of the
entire system. With the additional maintenance and installations we had to increase our work force to 3 crews.
 2003-2006: expansion
In 2003 another salesman/designer by the name of Chris Carey was hired. Chris had extensive experience as a gaffer in the film
industry, helping to broaden knowledge of the company. After learning the culture of Night Light, Chris began to working a territory from Chicago
to Aurora. By this time, nearly 150 landscape companies considered Night Light, Inc. their landscape illumination company of
choice, up from about 25 in 1998.
Spring of 2006 was when the first company newsletter was delivered to our existing customers. The goal was to educate our
customers about the world of site and landscape illumination and update them on the happenings within Night Light through a
biannual newsletter. Sales and maintenance continued to increase to the point where we needed a crew just to concentrate on all
the service and maintenance full time. In order to follow our company goal of becoming more environmentally conscious we purchased
two Mercedes built Dodge Sprinters which run on diesel and have a much higher fuel mileage rating over the standard work van.
They also allowed us to transport up to 5 crew members safely in secure seats along with a steel bulkhead for their protection.
Safety has always been a priority but these two Sprinters made it a reality. The outside surface of each of the Sprinters were
designed as a complete vinyl wrap to be a traveling billboard for marketing purposes. They are a real show stopper.
2007- : today & beyond
In late winter 2007, we offered a free site evaluation to all of our customers that had not had maintenance on their
lighting system performed by our crews in more than 2 years. Many times we were asked if we had such a program so we decided
to do a trial in 2007. This evaluation provided an on site complete review of the existing lighting system to determine if it
was performing at a level consistent with the original installation. If problems were detected or changes needed to be made to
improve the lighting system, this was all noted on the written evaluation and presented to the customer. If no changes or
adjustments were needed, a clean bill of health was given to the client. Due to the continuous change of the landscape,
many of our customers were
grateful for the helpful upgrades. It is such a benefit and success for our customers that we are planning on continuing it in
the future.
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