Carlsbad is an affluent beach village in the North County San Diego region known for its restaurants, golfing, shopping, events and much more. With year round practically perfect weather, there could not have been a better place for Bergelectric to establish a new Corporate Headquarters. Bergelectric’s corporate personnel—including members of the Board of Directors—relocated to this state-of-the-art office facility in 2019. The new facility not only fits Bergelectric’s needs from a logistical standpoint, but the modern attributes better suit Bergelectric’s company culture and exemplifies their position as one of the nation’s leading electrical contractors.
Bergelectric’s original corporate headquarters was established in Los Angeles, California in 1946 before moving into a larger facility in 1947—also in Los Angeles. That facility remained Bergelectric’s only office location until 1973 when they made the bold move to open a new office in Escondido, California—helping to expand their Southern California presence in the San Diego market.
In 1987, Bergelectric’s growth in Southern California—including San Diego—caused them to exceed capacity at their original headquarters. That year, they purchased a new, larger, facility in Los Angeles that would accommodate their needs at the time, and left room for potential growth. The headquarters was located on Centinela Avenue between Inglewood and Westchester.
Over time, the Los Angeles market continued to grow, and the sprawling geography of the region made the Los Angeles office a tough commute for many new employees. Because of this, two additional Southern California locations were eventually developed—first in Orange County and later in Ventura—while primary corporate functions remained in the Los Angeles office.
“Our intentions were not to leave the Escondido location,” said Bergelectric CEO Alan Mashburn. “We started there in the 70’s and have a lot of history with that location. The same can be said with the Los Angeles office, we were there since the 80’s. Both locations have a lot of history and were the standard that we used to establish our regional locations. With further growth and expansion in sight however, we decided to sell our corporate buildings in Los Angeles and purchase a new corporate building in Carlsbad.”
The new headquarters gave Bergelectric the chance to consolidate their corporate employees into one building. Approximately 100 employees now work from the Carlsbad headquarters including employees in the following departments: Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, Payroll, Accounting, Information Technology, Human Resources, Training & Development, Corporate Field Operations, and Marketing.
Additionally, the new Corporate Headquarters includes seven conference/training rooms with one that is approximately 1,500-s.f. called “The Marlin Room.” These rooms help strengthen Bergelectric’s commitment to providing on-going training to all their employees—through their Bergacademy® training program—by providing larger training areas and the ability to centralize much of their training into one location.
The design and development of the renovation was nearly 100% home-grown. Bergelectric CEO, Alan Mashburn, President, Eddie Billig, and COO, Ron Wood were at the helm of the design and consistently utilized Bergelectric resources and personnel along the way. For instance, Bergelectric Technology Manager, Derek Renn, was involved in the early stages of the construction model—helping to make Alan, Eddie and Ron’s vision come to life. Bergelectric Sr. Project Manager, Don Kuhn, was brought on as the overall construction manager, and Executive Assistant, Tomasa Collazo played a crucial role in managing the furniture selection and installation.
Other key Bergelectric personnel were brought in for ideas and insight throughout the process. Frequent tours of the facility were given by upper
management during construction to employees—keeping everybody in the know and creating a sense of pride about the new headquarters.
The move to the new corporate facility came shortly after the relocation of Bergelectric’s National Technology Systems (NTS) Division, and National Projects Division. Both divisions moved into a new facility in Escondido, California—down the street from the original San Diego regional office. Additionally, Bergelectric’s SoCal Service Division opened two new offices—located in Corona and San Diego—to better cover their Southern California territory. These moves reduced the San Diego regional office down to one building that now encompasses San Diego operations personnel only.
“The first benefit that we saw from the moves was that we were able to improve the efficiency of the different groups by locating them into a better layout, which has encouraged collaboration and improved our processes,” said Mashburn. “The second was that work environments and amenities, like parking, are much better than before. The third benefit is that we now have the capacity to allow our company to continue to grow without disrupting our operations by moving again.”
“As a company, we have always been challenged with growing and expanding our footprint. The buildings that we moved out of have served a very important purpose as we have grown, and we now see the current locations as continuing that aspect of helping us to grow and providing a quality environment for our employees to work in.
The Board of Directors are very excited about the progress we have made—the future is very exciting, and we are ready to take it on.”