Southwire’s roots extend back to 1937, when Roy Richards, Sr. started Richards & Associates (R&A) to erect power poles with the ultimate purpose of bringing electric light to his grandmother’s home. During its first two and a half years, R&A strung 3,500 miles of cable, becoming the nation’s second-largest Rural Electrification Act (REA) contractor. As World War II halted all REA construction, Richards was called up into the U.S. Army, eventually reaching the rank of captain. Richards returned home after the war to find that power poles put up by his company often stood wireless for months because of post-war shortages in wire. Seeing that a market existed, he decided the only way to ensure a steady supply of wire was to make it himself.
On March 23, 1950, Southwire was founded and began production with 12 employees and second-hand machinery. Two years later, the company had shipped five million pounds of wire and doubled its plant size. Since that time, Southwire has become one of the world’s leading manufacturers of wire and cable solutions. Still family-owned, the $8B organization is made up of more than 9,000 team members across the globe who unite as ONE Southwire each day to serve each other, our customers and our communities. Southwire and our subsidiaries provide solutions including building wire and cable, metal-clad cable, utility products, portable and electronic cord products, and OEM wire products. In addition, Southwire offers electrical products, engineered solutions, and a variety of field support services.
Investing and Innovating for the Future
Southwire’s product portfolio gives us a firm foundation for the future, and a strong strategy is in place to deliver growth, improved profitability, and value creation for the company’s stakeholders. At the same time, we are working to drive operational excellence, making long-term, multi-million-dollar investments into areas such as modernization, lean culture, research and development, and digitalization to ensure we can best support our strategic growth. Notably, our company’s modernization effort includes a multi-year investment of more than a billion dollars to integrate newer and better equipment, systems, and technology into Southwire’s operations, increasing efficiency, enhancing our competitiveness, and ensuring the operational capability and capacity to support this strategic growth.
Sustainability at the Center
At Southwire, our employees are The People Behind the Power™ of what is possible. We seek to discover, develop, and distribute strong and sustainable solutions that exceed the expectations of our stakeholders around the world. Our goal is to remain generationally sustainable for the next 100 years and beyond. To achieve this vision, our sustainability approach leverages five core tenets that guide and ground our efforts – Growing Green, Living Well, Giving Back, Doing Right, and Building Worth.
A Culture of Caring
Creating shared value is at the heart of Southwire’s focus on Giving Back. We take time to understand the needs of our communities and engage them to provide purposeful support. Along the way, we create value for Southwire by strengthening our relationships with team members, neighbors, and future talent. Through volunteerism, community partnerships, and charitable giving, we are bringing this commitment to life.
Southwire is an organization poised for tremendous growth, and an essential piece of that growth is the ability to attract, retain, and engage a diversified workforce. We continue to take meaningful steps to deepen our efforts to sustain and strengthen an inclusive workplace while extending this commitment into the communities in which our team members work and live. Our ONE Southwire culture prioritizes the interests of our team members, customers, communities, and shareholders through our values: empowerment, trust, consistency, and inclusion. Southwire’s actions are a true reflection of these words – the reason many people choose us as a place to build and grow their career.
On the Brink: The Next Electrical Revolution
The promise of an all-electric future in North America is here – it is real, it is exciting, and it is attainable. Southwire’s solutions play a leading role in the electrification of our world, and we are committed to partnering with stakeholders in all areas to address the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead.
