Leadership Team

Jason Barbour

Chief Executive Officer-Founder

Mr. Barbour brings to START Lighting more than 25 years of experience in the electrical distribution and lighting industry, as well as 15 years of Senior Executive leadership. He has held senior positions with two of the largest electrical and lighting distributors in the world and has a history of creating high growth and increasing revenue and profit. He founded The Barbour Group, providing leadership consulting and training to executives, established Diogen’s Commercial LED Division, was a co-founder and COO of Lumena SSL and went on to create START Lighting. He possesses the ability to focus on long term strategies, while intimately participating in the daily operations of the Company.

Chris Kohler

Chief Financial Officer

Mr. Kohler has served as the company’s Chief Financial Officer Since May 2016. He holds a Master’s in Accountancy as well as a Finance Master’s in Business Administration from the University of Colorado, Denver. Mr. Kohler has over 15 years of experience serving in a wide variety finance and accounting roles and is the founder and CEO of Kohler Consulting, Inc., which provides outsourced CFO and advisory services to private and public companies, with a focus on small cap and start-up businesses. Mr. Kohler has a proven track record of “C Suite” experience managing corporate finance and accounting departments.

Mike Rainsberger

Vice President of Operations

Mike Rainsberger is one of the nation’s premier global sourcing and operations management professionals, with over 15 years of manufacturing, global sourcing, quality assurance, distribution and product development experience. Fluent in Mandarin Chinese, Mike has extensive experience in offshore manufacturing supply chain development and management. Mr. Rainsberger has been successful in developing manufacturing relationships with rapid product turnaround and extremely high quality standards. Mr. Rainsberger has the innate ability to cultivate strategic partnerships, establish operational excellence and influence stakeholders across culturally diverse environments and functions.

Board of Directors

Bob Grant

Bob Grant has over 25 years’ experience as a senior executive. His experience spans a wide range of companies from Fortune 100 to start-ups, with a focus on services and technology companies. As President and CEO, he successfully led the turnaround of multiple companies. He has held other executive roles in the areas of Sales, Marketing and Business Development in high tech companies including EagleView Technologies; Alliente (acquired by Ariba); Ligos Corporation; Covad Communications (IPO); US WEST (merged with Qwest). Currently, Bob is an angel investor and advisor to several high-tech start-ups in the Denver area. Bob holds a Masters of Science in Management from the MIT Sloan School of Management (Sloan Fellow 1988). He has served on the board of several companies and non-profits.

Robert C. Hawk

Mr. Hawk is president of Hawk Communications whose mission is to help develop high technology companies. In 1997 he retired as President and CEO of US West Multimedia Communications, Inc. where he was responsible for the Media 1 cable business and the Time Warner partnership. From 1986 until 1995, Mr. Hawk was president of the Carrier Division of US West Communications, Inc. Prior to that Mr. Hawk was Vice President, Marketing and Strategic Planning for CXC Corporation, a high technology start up and before that was Director, Advanced Systems Development for American Bell. During 1997-2002 Mr. Hawk served as a Special Limited Partner of Crosspoint Venture Partners. During that time he served on the boards or advisory boards of sixteen companies that went public. Mr. Hawk currently is a Special Limited Partner of DCM capital management and Miramar venture partners. He serves as a director of several private high technology companies. During the past twenty plus years Mr. Hawk has worked with the CEOs and officers of over 100 high-tech companies as a board member, advisor and investor.

Three Generations of Lighting Industry Expertise

Our history began 70 years ago when Bill Barbour, a young man in North Chicago, took a job as a truck driver for a local distributor. From truck driver to general manager he progressed upward with an impeccable reputation and was regarded as one of the best to ever hold a position in the electrical industry. He officially retired in the early 1980’s, but was asked to return only a year later to consolidate the Florida markets for a large distributor. He was tremendously respected and passed away while still actively working in the industry.

That same passion for the industry stuck with his son Jim Barbour. After working for his father he moved from Chicago to Denver where he took a risk and built his own successful industrial control and automation supply company. Following the sale of that company he went on to develop another electrical distribution enterprise and helped it become a very successful and multi-regional operation. He is still involved in the industry today and is considered one of the foremost experts in control and automation products.

Surrounded by the business since childhood, and with spending every break through high school and college working in the field, Jim’s son Jason Barbour joined the industry. Keeping with tradition Jason went to work for his father, growing from a young branch manager to an executive with a global distributor. Jason built a solid reputation and became the go-to person for reinvigorating underperforming operations.

Spurred on by the entrepreneurial successes of his family, Jason drew upon three generations of relationships to create one of the 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 Light Fair International and continues to innovate and shape today’s market.