About Us

The START Lighting Difference

START Lighting manufactures high quality lighting fixtures for the commercial and industrial markets and is committed to selling through electrical and lighting distributors. Producing a broad line of standard and customized solutions, START Lighting provides innovative solutions to commercial and industrial lighting challenges. Through in-house design, engineering, modification and assembly capabilities, START can reduce product development time from months to weeks to modify and engineer custom-made lighting.

START Lighting is about manufacturing innovative and high-quality lighting fixtures. Producing a broad product line of indoor and outdoor lighting fixtures while having the ability to customize fixtures with various chips, lenses and mounting fixtures or adding cameras, sensors and other capabilities, START Lighting provides solutions for all your commercial and industrial retrofit lighting challenges.

And we have the ability to be responsive. Need it quickly? No problem. Need only a few? Not a problem? Need hundreds? We have you covered. Backed by  START Lighting’s warranty program as well as all rigorous industry performance and quality standards.

Three Generations of Lighting Industry Expertise

Our history began over 70 years ago when Bill Barbour, a young man in North Chicago, took a job as a truck driver for a local electrical distributor. He learned the business from the ground up. From truck driver to general manager, he progressed upward with an impeccable reputation and reinforced the value that electrical distributors bring to their customers.

Bill passed his knowledge, and passion, for the industry to his son, Jim Barbour. His first exposure to electrical distribution was working for his father in Chicago. He then moved from Chicago to Denver where he started his own industrial control and automation supply company. Following the sale of that company he started another electrical distribution company and grew it to a successful multi-regional operation. Today, he still works in the industry and is considered one of the foremost experts in control and automation products.

Being brought up in the electrical industry and surrounded by the business since childhood, Jim’s son Jason started in the warehouse working summers and “pushing a broom” and “stocking shelves”. After college, Jason started as a branch manager and moved to District and National levels with the industries largest electrical distributors.

Inspired by the family and sensing the LED opportunity, Jason drew upon three generations of relationships to create one of the industry’s first LED-specific lighting companies. As one of the foremost participants in the LED lighting revolution, Jason brought one of the first lines of commercially viable LED lamps to LightFair. Given the commoditization of LED lamps and recognizing the scale needed to compete in that space, Jason refocused his LED expertise to the fixture aspect of the business and launched START Lighting. Today he continues to bring innovative lighting products and solutions to START Lighting’s customers.