Electrical supplies distributor City Electric Supply announced July 13 that Jim Lawson — the company’s Vice President of Operations — has retired after nearly 45 years with the company.

CES detailed that Lawson helped build CES into what it is today as one of the largest electrical wholesale distributors in the U.S. — No. 8 on MDM’s 2023 Electrical Distributors List.

He began with the company as a sales representative in Scotland before becoming a branch manager there in 1985. By 1991 he was a district manager, and was offered to come to the U.S. in that same role shortly after.

“I wanted to come to America and help build something from scratch,” Lawson said in a CES article.

Bringing his wife Lynn and two sons along for the journey, Lawson began building business for CES from Raleigh, North Carolina in 1996. He moved to Charleston, South Carolina before helping open CES in Colorado in the early 2000s and oversaw company expansion in Philadelphia.

As a VP of Operations for at least a decade and a half, Jim’s territory reached 115 CES stores across South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Northern Florida and parts of Mississippi.

CES shares Lawson’s career story here, including a retirement video.