Page 14 - Lighting Magazine March 2018

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BARN LIGHT CELEBRATES 10TH ANNIVERSARY
Titusville, Fla.-based Barn Light Electric (BLE) is marking 10 years of success as a leading domestic
manufacturer of vintage-style lighting. Owners Bryan and Donna Sco took a leap of faith when they le their respec- tive professional careers to launch BLE as a full-time business in 2008. The company has grown to occupy more than 65,000 square feet of o ce and manufacturing space, employs 130 people, and o ers more than 5,000 products.
Bryan and Donna Sco , owners of Barn Light Electric in Florida.
“My goal was to keep these xtures American-made and employ people for the local economy... I wanted to give people an opportunity to work right here and be proud of something made in the U.S.” —Bryan Sco
12 enLIGHTenment Magazine | March 2018
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“We didn’t know what would happen. We didn’t even know if we were going
to be successful, but the business took o fast and furious,” Bryan Sco recalls. “Donna took a leave of absence from work, intending to return, but never did.”
Drawn to antique lights for their timeless designs and cra smanship, the couple decided to manufacture their xtures the old-fashioned way — by hand, using high-quality materials. They revived the art of metal spinning and introduced their own porcelain enamel operation in 2012. At the time, porce- lain enamel lighting reportedly hadn’t been manufactured in the U.S. for more than 50 years.
An early hallmark of the industry, por- celain enamel was used as an extra layer of protection to keep lighting xtures performing even in harsh industrial and agricultural se ings. With the advent of cheaper materials and manufacturing techniques, most lighting xtures lost
this initial durability.
Motivated by the owners’ desire
to return to the original way of doing things, BLE lights are manufactured with skill and artistry. Flat pieces of commercial-grade metal are spun on a lathe and are carefully manipulated and sculpted until they assume the correct shape. To fully replicate the quality found in vintage lights, a collection of these handcra ed shades are coated in porcelain.
“This meticulous process ingrains a tangible sense of dependability and integrity directly into each light we produce,” Sco says. “My goal was to keep these xtures American-made and employ people for the local economy. Although it was suggested we could make more money by shi ing manu- facturing overseas, that wasn’t going
to happen. I wanted to give people an opportunity to work right here and be proud of something made in the U.S.”