Leviton played a role in disaster relief

While most people think of water, food and shelter when it comes to emergency relief efforts, Leviton provided areas of Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee with another essential product in the aftermath of recent storms and tornados: watertight locking plugs and connectors, 50 amp generator plus, and a wide assortment of other temporary power supplies.

The Melville, N.Y.-based manufacturer enacted its Emergency Response Procedures (LERP), which in this case meant immediately opening its 500,000-sq.-ft. warehouse in Lebanon, Tenn., to ensure adequate supply of products in demand. 

“Leviton's catastrophe preparedness policy is to always overstock our selected lines of commercial and industrial products,” said Ken Wallace, who manages Leviton’s distribution center in Lebanon. “We are always ready for such occasions, and the emergency response protocol helps us to make sure we can react quickly to get our products to where they are needed most.”

Wallace worked with Leviton manager Rodney Coots and Leviton Southeast  regional sales representative Keith Wiemann in the days following the April 27 storms and over the weekend of April 30 to manually pick items from the distribution center shelves to fill orders. Wiemann also took the extra step of driving the products more than 70 miles to meet distributors and contractors closer to affected areas to get much-needed connection products to disaster sites faster.

“There are no ‘hours of operation’ when it comes to helping communities in need and our valued customers. This team went above and beyond -- some of them leaving family events and working through the weekend to make sure vital electrical products were available when needed,” said William Marshall, Leviton senior VP sales and marketing.

Diane Corso, a Leviton veteran of 35 years, coordinated the efforts of the Tennessee team through the weekend and made sure all customer orders were fulfilled.