In recent years, some casinos in Reno, Nevada, have closed, having lost business to newer casinos in Northern California and Southern Oregon. But the Reno Chamber of Commerce's decision to emphasize the area's other attractions—golf and skiing, in particular—has kept its economy solid.

And the development and renovation of some of these former casinos into condominiums has kept businesses like electrical distributor WEDCO Inc. going strong.

WEDCO has benefited from the growth in and around Reno and other Northern Nevada markets for the past few years, says Rich Stoltz, vice president.

“The market here has been strong for three or four years. We've been having some record years and having a good time with it,” he says.

Reno's residential boom began about five years ago. Although WEDCO doesn't do much residential, Stoltz says, the sector's influence is still significant, since WEDCO's focus is commercial construction.

“With residential comes commercial,” Stoltz explains. “We've seen some small OEMs move to the area from Northern California, as the cost of living is a bit lower here. There's been a large increase in population.”

While WEDCO may not venture directly into residential markets, Stoltz is savvy enough to know that housing's decline nonetheless could eventually impact WEDCO.

“There are a lot of houses on the market right now and the length of time they stay on the market is longer,” he says. “New home construction is down. But commercial usually lags behind that. So I think we're still a couple of years away from seeing a commercial slowdown.”

In discussing WEDCO's electrical product lines, Stoltz puts wiring, especially copper wiring, at the top of the list.

“Wire became our biggest seller last year, tying up most of our inventory dollars. And for the past three years, copper has taken up a lot of the time of our inventory management people,” he says. “It's changed our business. Everybody has had to get smarter. It used to be when you needed wire, you'd just buy more. It's become something our inventory people watch every day.”

Copper's sometimes limited availability, and resulting higher prices, also posed a challenge. But the copper shortage left no major scars and no projects were cancelled, Stoltz explains. However for 2007, WEDCO decided to make wire a major focus.

“If it's going to be tying up that much of our inventory dollars, we'd better do a good job of selling it and turning it into a profitable line,” Stoltz says. “That's become a big focus of our company.”

WEDCO is an independent distributor with 55 employees at four Nevada locations: Reno, Carson City, Fallon and Tahoe. They enjoy being independent, Stoltz says, but he is clear-eyed about the impact the big box stores can have as they become more prominent in the Reno area, where several have opened large warehouses in recent years. He remains undaunted, though.

“We need to focus on ourselves and look at the services we do,” Stoltz says. “As an independent, we have the flexibility to go to customers and make decisions. We can adapt to change very quickly and meet individual customer needs. And doing so has helped us.”