Generator Interlock Technologies, LLC (GIT) is a small Richmond based company that manufactures a product that allows homeowners to safely connect their portable generators to their homes electrical system.
GIT was started in 2004 after hurricane Isabel ravished the area and a customer of a local electrical contractor wanted a safe way to connect his portable generator to his home. The owner of the company, Doug Albertson, took the challenge and built his first Interlock Kit by cutting out pieces of cardboard as a reference. When he had finalized a working model, he had it cut from sheet metal by a local shop. The customer was thrilled and told several of his friends about the kit. Requests for kits started coming in by word of mouth and the idea of setting up a separate company to design, manufacture, and sell the product was born. Brainstorming with a friend they came up with a name for the new company, Generator Interlock Technologies, LLC. Several meetings with lawyers and filings with the State Corporation Commission and the new company was in business.
As with any new small businesses, the devil is in the details and for Generator Interlock Technologies, the devil was getting thousands of different electrical inspectors across the United States to approve the product. While the inspectors who saw the product, liked the concept, most insisted that it be tested and certified by an independent laboratory before they would allow it to be installed in homes. Having never been involved with this aspect of business, it took months and several rejections before a testing laboratory that would deal with a small company could be found. Even after a company was found, it took another four months and tens of thousands of dollars to get the first kit listed to UL67 standards.
The next scary step was spending money on advertising. Even small ads in the big electrical trade journals cost $2,000 to $3,000 per month and that was a lot of money for a small start-up company. But a few contractors read the ads, tried the product, and sales started to pick up. The good news was that most of the contractors that tried one kit started buying multiple per month and telling other people how much they liked it.
In 2005 the Interlock Kit was recognized by Electrical Contracting Products magazine as one of the ‘Top Innovative Electrical Products of the Year’ and in 2006 sales continue to grow. GIT now has a web site at www.interlockkit.com, which generates one third of their yearly sales. Even contractors are using the web as an easier way to do business, due to the ease of placing orders at night and not losing time in the field.
When GIT started, they offered two or three kits to fit the most popular electrical panels. Today they offer over thirty kits and the parts are laser cut from stainless steel by a local metal fabricator.
Generator Interlock Technologies, LLC now has three employees and sales are expected to top $750,000 this year. They ship product all across the country but the kits are still assembled in the same shop near the Richmond Diamond where it all started.
GIT shows that, dream to reality is still possible in Richmond Virginia
GENERATOR INTERLOCK
3107 Lanale Ave
Richmond, VA 23230
Phone: (804) 726-2448
Fax: (804) 231-1984
Visit www.interlockkit.com to learn more about the InterLock Kit.
