How We Got Started

On January 15, 1981, Cory and Nancy Somes formed Central Michigan Lighting with the fundamental theme of representing lighting manufacturers in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan and its surrounding communities. This initial focal point evolved with the addition of Anderson Electrical Products and other utility manufacturers. As a result, on February 1, 1988, they renamed the corporation to C.L. Somes Company, Inc. as a tangible measure of their new focus on the utility marketplace. Since that time our company has evolved into a full line electric utility representative selling products and services throughout the entire state of Michigan.

As sales grew exponentially, it became apparent additional resources would be required to maintain this tremendous growth. The company hired Becky Moore in 1991 to assist part time in the office. Her position matured into a salaried post as the office manager in 1996. In 1994, our company added Gary Miserlian as a fifty percent owner and partner of the organization. Accordingly, our company truncated its name to the acronym CSI to acknowledge the new partnership between Cory Somes and Gary Miserlian. In 1995, the innovative collaboration yielded nearly a 40% increase in sales. Again, with sales continuing to grow, CSI added Brian Miserlian in January 1999 as an additional outside sales representative and potential owner.

In response to the evolving utility demographics, CSI began the groundwork to transition the business to the next generation. In September 2002, Jeff Battley came on board as a prospective owner of the company. On January 2, 2004, Cory Somes and Gary Miserlian stepped down as owners of CSI by officially transferring ownership to Brian Miserlian and Jeff Battley. Also, at that time, we reaffirmed our commitment to the utility industry by renaming our agency to CSI Utility Sales.

Today, we are headquartered in Grand Ledge, Michigan and continue serving utilities, contractors, and engineering firms devoted to designing, constructing and improving electric utility power grids. We represent over 20 utility manufacturers encompassing street lighting, distribution, transmission and substation products. Within this group, we are synonymous with over a dozen of them for nearly 20 years.