Winona Lighting specializes in custom and standard decorative and performance lighting fixtures for commercial markets. Photo by: Hedrich Blessing

For more than 47 years, Winona, Minn.-based Winona Lighting has shed light on what it takes to be an innovator in luminaire manufacturing. In that time, the company has shifted its focus from the stained-glass fixtures it originally sold to custom decorative and high-performance lighting.

As the company grows, it adds a slew of new products, says Jake Biesanz, project coordinator. Among its bright ideas is the addition of products that use light-emitting diodes – widely known as LEDs – an energy-efficient alternative to its traditional incandescent and compact fluorescent counterparts.

Winona Lighting specializes in creating both custom and standard decorative and performance lighting fixtures for commercial markets, including shopping malls, public institutions, restaurants, auditoriums and bridges. The company manufactures approximately $3 million worth of fixtures per month. “We’ve just started hitting that goal this year, and we’ve hit it every month [since January],” Biesanz says.

The company was founded in 1960, then specializing in stained glass luminaires. Soon after its founding, the manufacturer started getting requests for custom luminaires, and eventually capitalized on the opportunity to create this product for the masses. “We are a manufacturer of fixtures; not of lamps,” Biesanz explains. In 1986, the company branched further out and developed their decorative product line. One feature that helped sell the product was the ability to modify Winona Lighting designs. Winona’s custom background allows clients to modify their standard designs easier than their competitors do and at a competitive cost. “In order to be competitive, we needed to have a standard product line,” Biesanz recalls.

Within the last 10 years, Winona Lighting has added new products, including its Windirect line of asymmetric luminaires, the Winscape line of landscaping products and its newest division, Winona LED, which offers high-brightness light-emitting diodes. Winona’s product line ranges from pendants and wall sconces to flood and ingrade lighting to LED step lights with fully concealed optics. Each can be manufactured in several different finishes, and custom finishes are available at no additional cost.

Today, product is sold by Winona Lighting’s national network of representatives. Approximately one-third of its products are standard and two-thirds are custom and modified standard products.

Although most of its competition shies away from custom lighting, Biesanz says custom work is really the company’s “bread and butter,” and has served as the launching pad from which the standard and modified standard product lines started.

In-Touch With the Trends
Understanding interior design trends can be equally important to understanding the client’s lighting needs, Biesanz says. The company’s regional sales managers and its marketing department are responsible for researching the market, attending tradeshows and keeping a finger on the pulse of the design community. He says the firm watches European trends closely since trends in the United States tend to follow what is created in Italy, for example.

Although Winona Lighting has completed custom fixtures for large-scale renovations such as Radio City Music Hall in New York City and Washington D.C.’s Lincoln Memorial, today its largest niche market is in retail. The firm manufactures lighting fixtures for the interior and exterior common areas for roughly eight to 12 shopping malls per year, Biesanz estimates.

Securing such projects is the result of its ability to meet clients’ fixture specifications and schedules, regardless of the complexity of an order. “With us, we are always breaking away from the pack,” Biesanz says, adding that the company’s good reputation is a product of doing things right on time, the first time. “When you’ve got a good relationship and you are hitting your dates,” business will follow, Biesanz maintains.

Enlightening Partnership
In 2004, Winona Lighting partnered with Morris, Conn.-based i2 Systems, a solid-state lighting OEM and systems developer, and formed its new LED division. i2 Systems’ core expertise is developing complete LED systems for industries including architectural, aerospace, medical, nuclear, entertainment and marine. The partnership gives the two the opportunity to combine its skills in architectural lighting and the integration of LED sources.

According to Biesanz, the partnership will place the company at the forefront of the movement to bring LED technologies into architectural lighting. The relationship, Biesanz anecdotes, is similar to that of the automotive industry. “We partnered up to build the fixtures, so if you compare it to the automotive industry, i2 Systems is the engine and we are the chassis,” he says.

Winona LED and i2 Systems worked together to create custom LED lighting applications, as well as a standard line of products which includes decorative, step lighting and linear lighting systems. The company is able to design, test, manufacture and ship product to distribution centers nationally – something the competition hasn’t been able to do.

“That lends us great flexibility when working in the industry,” says i2 Systems owner Tom Zampini. “Every job is different. There are higher expectations in architectural applications and we are able to quickly respond on our end and tailor the needs to meet a specific job.”

Few partnerships between LED lighting OEMs and fixture manufacturers exist, Zampini claims. “This is a rather unique relationship,” he notes. “In [Winona Lighting’s] industry they are innovating and really for high-end architectural type lighting. Not many companies are working as aggressively with LED technology as they are."

A strong reputation and solid product attracted Zampini to the company. “Winona has a lot of experience and a strong customer base, and has been very responsive and willing to supply customers to their exact requirements as opposed to push a standard product and asking the [customer] to make it work,” he says.

“Both companies are very good at what we do,” Zampini continues. “We’ve been doing solid state lighting for seven years, and now we have been able to apply the applications that integrate into Winona fixtures. These are excellent fixtures that are designed to support out installations.”

Winona LED lighting is featured in the Cue Restaurant at the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis, at The Hooker Auditorium at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Mass., and on the Centerra Bridge in Loveland, Colo.

Finding ‘Better Solutions’
Although LED lighting offers an energy-efficient alternative to compact fluorescent bulbs, the high cost and new technology remain obstacles in brining the product to the mainstream. “I believe some type of LED technology will eventually take over, but we are still at the early stages,” Zampini asserts. “It’s going to take sheer volume and demand to bring down the total expense.”

Zampini says the partnership with Winona Lighting will provide the perfect foundation to bring new ideas and products to market. “We are continually innovating and always finding better ways to control power and find better solutions for optic design,” he continues. “We always stay ahead of the curve in terms of offering consumers products that are on the leading edge of technology. Even as LEDs become more adopted, it’s our intention to provide products that are innovative and provide more value to our customers.

“It’s only a matter of time before we get overall adoption,” Zampini says.