Nov 4 2007
Relume Technologies is not a lighting giant like General Electric or Philips -- at least not yet.
But the Oakland County-based company, with just 32 employees and 12 patents on LED lighting technology, has enjoyed robust growth since it was founded in 1994.
Because the company is private, it does not release financial figures publicly, but, said Michael McClear, president and CEO of Relume, "We've doubled the size of the business every year."
That's because businesses and governments are increasingly turning to LEDs, or light-emitting diodes, for efficient and long-lasting lighting.
LEDs are used in everything from streetlights, signs, cars, trucks and airplanes to safety products and military devices. Even fast-food companies are tapping what Relume has to offer.
"McDonald's just adopted our technology," McClear said. "We certainly don't see the growth trend that we're on stopping."
Incandescent, halogen or fluorescent light bulbs generally use a filament that must be heated and gas to create a visible spectrum. LEDs don't have a filament that can burn out. Rather, they are illuminated solely by the movement of electrons in a semiconductor material, called a diode, which is a small, long-lasting chip. That different technology requires less energy to create light.
While LED bulbs are usually far more expensive than rival lighting sources, they eventually pay for themselves with saved electricity, replacement and maintenance costs, since they last longer.
"LEDs are a much more efficient light source, for the same amount of energy," McClear said. "We get the same amount of light for 1/10 of the energy, and it'll last 50 times longer."
Relume has become a leader in the emerging LED business because founder and Chairman Peter Hochstein, a physicist, developed patented technology that allows Relume LEDs to burn brighter and last longer than those from competitors, McClear said.
"We heat sink the LED better than anybody else," McClear explained.
One of Relume's big customers is Truck-Lite Co. Inc. That New York-based company manufactures signal and forward lighting products for the heavy-duty truck, trailer and commercial vehicle market. It is a subsidiary of Penske Corp., which is controlled by Michigan-based billionaire and racing legend Roger Penske.
Relume's other big customer is the U.S. military, which has tapped the Michigan company for lights for its shelters, mobile command centers and a variety of other uses. Relume designed a 7-million candlepower searchlight for the military, as well as warning beacons for military checkpoints.
Over the past two years, Relume has received more than $1.75 million in small business innovative research grants from the U.S. Department of Defense, McClear said.
Because demand has been so intense for Relume's LED street and other municipal lights, the company has adopted a distributor model to sell its technology.
Relume's distributor, which hires salespeople nationwide to fill orders, is Lumecon LLC in Farmington Hills, and that firm has secured orders for Relume from Ann Arbor to California, which is placing a lot of orders.
For now, all of Relume Technologies' lights are manufactured at the company's 35,000-square-foot facility in Oxford.