Alumni brightening Winnipeg with lights business
Terrell Froese and Mike Friesen, pictured in their workshop.
(Click photos to enlarge.)
Since purchasing Lights Unlimited three years ago, lifelong friends Mike Friesen (CMU ’10) and Terrell Froese (CMU 2005-06) have grown the business from a humble residential Christmas lights installation company to one that also designs and creates exciting light displays in public spaces throughout Winnipeg.
If you’ve walked over the old railway bridge at the Forks, strolled through the park behind Millennium Library, or sauntered through West Broadway, you’ve seen their work.
We spoke with Friesen about what it’s like running Lights Unlimited.
“We’re really proud of all our jobs,” he said. “A home install that requires 60 feet of lights is awesome because the kids that live there are so happy about having Christmas lights. Big jobs, like a Christmas tree display we did recently at the Days Inn in Steinbach, which is made of cables and 10,000 LED lights, are also really cool.”
How did you make the jump into the Christmas lights business?
I made the jump into the Christmas lights business through a connection I made at CMU. The men’s hockey coach at the time, Kevin Boone, had started a Christmas lights company called Lights Unlimited and I worked for him, lighting trees and houses as a part-time gig while I attended CMU. I did four or five seasons. In the fall of 2012, when Kevin wanted to sell the company, Terrell and I bought it.
From residential home installs to big projects like at the
Forks, Friesen and Froese are proud of all their jobs.
What do you like about your work at Lights Unlimited?
What I really like is the mix of creativity, hands on work, and tangible results. I can see that we lit this house or this tree, or we did these amazing wedding lights. It also has a pretty big sales component. There’s a lot of interaction with clients, so I get to meet a lot of really interesting people, from fellow business owners to people who are planning weddings. We do a lot of work for Winnipeg Jets clients and people in the media. As someone who really enjoys working with people, it’s been a really interesting place to grow that side of myself.
You had 150 clients during the 2012 Christmas season and this season you have double that. You also have an additional 100 clients you’ve worked with over the past year on backyard lighting, wedding events, and other creative projects. That’s impressive growth in three years.
We want to be an efficient and profitable business. While we’ve grown our client base, we’ve also been trying to make investments into the future to make next year and the year after that even better. The previous owners got really good value out of Lights Unlimited as a side business they ran in addition to their day jobs. For Terrell and I, it’s been our passion to grow Lights Unlimited into a year-round company.
How have you expanded beyond Christmas lights to make that happen?
We originally were drawn into becoming a year-round company by a contract we were doing for the West Broadway BIZ. It was a dream project for us because we got to design and custom-build our own light fixtures and we got to put them up in a public space. That is something we got a huge thrill out of, because it meant our work was seen and could have a good benefit for a lot of people. Because it was a big project, we were able to take the plunge, quit our day jobs and devote time to that project as well as some other really cool projects that came up in the meantime. Once we quit our day jobs, we saw potential in our services and that there was demand out there for people who wanted to light up their cottages or do something really cool with their backyard, as well as the opportunity to do wedding lights and other event lighting. We always had people asking if we do these things in the past, but we were not really able to say yes to those. When we started doing Lights Unlimited full-time, we took the plunge and put ourselves in a position to say yes to those projects.
Lights Unlimited lit up this pedestrian bridge at the Forks,
also pictured at the top of this page.
You have been doing this full-time since the summer of 2013. What have the last two-and-a-half years been like?
It’s been a very exciting and challenging time. As small business owners we’ve found that there are very cool highs, and you have a lot of room for freedom and creativity. At the same time there are a lot of challenges. When you make a bad prediction on a job, it’s up to you as the owner to own that. That just comes with the territory. But it’s been really cool. We’ve gotten a lot of satisfaction from providing employment to people, many of whom are CMU alumni or current CMU students. We take pride in growing a business that is a place of meaningful employment, where the employee and the customer and the business are all respected and have a harmonious relationship.
How many employees do you have?
Including Terrell and myself, we’re writing cheques for nine people right now. A couple of those are part-timers, but we’ve had full-time seasonal employees since October 1st. It really works well for some people, whether they have other seasonal work in the summer time, or if they have travel plans, or if they’re taking classes in the second semester, to work for us for three months.
Friesen and Froese's work on display at
the Black Rabbit Bistro & Lounge.
How do you and Terrell divide up your work as the owners?
One of the benefits of being in a business partnership is that you’re always able to collaborate with the other person. It’s fun to have someone to brainstorm with, and it’s also beneficial to have someone who has different strengths than you. Terrell is very creative. He’s also really skilled at shop work – he comes from long line of very mechanically gifted and creative people in his family, and so he’s able to be the genius behind a lot of the products we’ve built and sold to our customers. Meanwhile, I enjoy talking with clients and focusing on providing what they need and selling to them.
How do the things you learned at CMU apply to your work now?
It is true that I did not take any courses on Christmas lighting at CMU, even though I will joke around with clients that I did minor in lighting installation. My major was Social Sciences. I was able to take a wide-range of courses, including philosophy courses from the Huebners, communications courses from David Balzer, and business courses like human resource management and accounting from Craig Martin. My education at CMU contributed to me becoming a well-rounded, well-educated person. It taught me to think critically, as well as research and interpersonal skills. I didn’t learn anything about electricity at CMU, but you learn lessons from your theology courses or your history courses that just become a part of you.
This interview has been condensed and edited.
Printed from: www.cmu.ca/community/blog/152
