New CEO lights the way as firm changes course

For a venerable Tampa lighting technology firm, steady business wasn’t good enough. To ward off stagnation, it jumped into new markets.

By Brian Hartz
| 6:00 a.m. August 9, 2019
| 0 Free Articles Remaining!

Mark Wemple. John Sheppard, CEO of Tampa-based Ottlite, is looking for new products the company could bring to market.

Strategies

Tampa tech firm OttLite made a name for itself with floor and desk lamps outfitted with special fluorescent lighting technology suited for architects, musicians, sewers and crafters — artists and artisans who needed to see the finest of details and match colors and hues exactly as they appear in daylight.

John Ott, a photobiologist and pioneer in the area of natural light research who worked for Walt Disney, founded the business 30 years ago in Baltimore. OttLite moved to Tampa in the 1990s; in the ensuing years, Prism Capital Partners, a Chicago private equity firm, acquired the company. But the market for its products began to stagnate.