Summit Electric Supply has a core belief that governs its operations: Customers should be treated as what they are — namely, a company's only reason for existing.

David Meredith and Victor Jury Sr. founded the wholesale electrical supply company with this philosophy in 1977. When Jury's son, Victor Jury Jr., joined the firm, he bought into the customers-first philosophy and brought to the company his entrepreneurial zeal.

Now the company's president and chief executive officer, the younger Jury has worked to teach his employees that Summit's first goal is to be the best, not necessarily the biggest.

To that end, Summit has stuck with its model of building the business through strong and lasting customer relationships. From its original facility in Albuquerque, the company has expanded to 20 service centers in the Southwest and Gulf Coast of the United States, plus an export division and a new sales office in the United Arab Emirates.

The company's leaders continuously have reinvested after-tax earnings into the business.

The company caters its products — which include distribution equipment, motor controls, lamps and lighting, conduit and fittings, wire and cable, tools, automation and more — and its services to each customer's needs. To that end, it invests heavily in employee training to attract the best caliber of worker.