Page 66 - Lighting Magazine January 2020

Retail Spotlight: Two CiTies HAGEN’S LIGHTING
Tyler, Texas
Shane Hagen’s grandparents started the core family business – a wholesale electrical sup- ply house in 1955 – that expanded to include
appliances and lighting over the ensuing 10 years. When their marriage ended, Shane’s grandparents split the business, with his grandfather retaining the original business and his grandmother open- ing a lighting gallery in Longview. “She was really good at the lighting business and stayed actively involved until she retired,” Shane says.
The Hagen family owns several businesses and it was while Shane was selling nuts and bolts for one of them that his father approached him in 2007 to say he was considering closing the lighting store in Longview unless Shane wanted to help turn it around. “He said I could go in and try to make it work or we’ll just shut the doors,” he recalls. While the rest of the country was facing the Recession, Hagen’s Lighting wasn’t adversely affected — yet.
In 2008, he learned that a long-time lighting showroom Tyler Lighting Gallery in Tyler, Texas (roughly 40 miles away) was going out of busi- ness. At the time, the Tyler area wasn’t as widely developed as it is now and he figured it was ripe for greater growth.
Shane took the gamble, buying out Tyler Lighting Gallery’s inventory and taking over the lease. The change was not so smooth; he soon learned the store’s reputation had taken a hit over the years. “Everything [about the Tyler Lighting Gallery busi- ness] was wrong; the merchandise was wrong, the employees were wrong, and customers weren’t happy,” he admits.
Right around that time, the Recession caught up to the Longview area and business fell off. Plus the daily grind of operating two showrooms so far apart began to take a toll.
“It was 2009 when it got bad for us and we de- cided to close the Longview store. It was a rough year of moving everything over from Longview to Tyler,” he recalls. Despite the hardship and their young age (Shane and his wife, Trina, were in their mid to late 20s), they survived the Recession by handling most of the work themselves. “We were open six days a week, and each day after work, I’d load up all the deliveries in my cargo van and make
Gone are the cluttered showroom looks of the past. When Shane and Trina relocated Hagen’s to its new building, they opted for a spacious and contempo- rary look to greet customers walking in.
62 enLIGHTenment Magazine | January 2020
www.enlightenmentmag.com