Lighting business signs Toshiba deal – MySanAntonio

GreenStar Products Inc., a lighting company that moved to San Antonio from Boerne last year, has signed a deal with Toshiba that will greatly expand GreenStar’s reach and boost its local employment.

Under the agreement, Toshiba’s name will appear on GreenStar’s products, and Toshiba will distribute the GreenStar-produced lights throughout North America.

The potential value of the deal isn’t known.

GreenStar uses LED, or light-emitting diode, technology to make indoor and outdoor lighting for commercial and municipal customers.

“This buys us instant credibility,” said Rod Gray, GreenStar’s executive vice president of sales and marketing. “Toshiba has its sales force and a marketing team ready to go.”

In its agreement with Toshiba, “I’ll ship product wherever Toshiba tells me to,” Gray said. “We’re bucking up, getting ready for the storm surge of business we think will come our way.”

GreenStar now employs about 25 and the deal with Toshiba will call for a ramp-up in manufacturing and hiring. But Gray said he doesn’t yet have an estimate of how many more workers might be needed.

GreenStar’s manufacturing plant and headquarters building is at the Alamo Downs Business Park, near Culebra Road and Loop 410. The company will continue to manufacture its own branded product, which it sells to Europe, Asia and Latin America, Gray said.

Toshiba chose GreenStar because the company “is committed to LED technology and creating innovative, energy-efficient, durable solutions,” said Mark Altomare, vice president of business development at Houston-based Toshiba International Corp.’s LED light systems division, in a statement. Toshiba International’s parent is a subsidiary of Japan’s giant Toshiba Corp.

“Toshiba has a 120-year heritage in lighting innovations,” Altomare said, “and we are excited about taking this next step.”

LED roadway lights and area lighting will be produced and sold under the agreement with GreenStar, and Altomare said the products “will be available exclusively through Toshiba in North America.”

GreenStar moved its headquarters and manufacturing operations to San Antonio from Boerne last year as part of a plan by CPS Energy CEO Doyle Beneby to use the buying power of CPS to boost economic development.

GreenStar is making 25,000 LED streetlights for the city — a deal that helped give GreenStar the incentive to move to San Antonio. The LED streetlights use about 60 percent less energy than standard sodium lights and last 12 to 15 years. The first lights recently were installed around the Convention Center, CPS spokeswoman Lisa Lewis said.