During the research and development process, Pitlor accepted the PDD team‘s advice to focus on commercial applications rather than the residential applications.

“The product we ended up with was very different from what I originally envisioned,” he recalls. “For example, we considered a lot of different latching mechanisms. At one point I thought we would go one way, and the guys at PDD pushed very hard to have it go a completely different direction. In hindsight, they were completely right.”

Shortly after its release to market in 2007, the Accessmount recessed-can fixture quickly captured industry attention. The product won Building Magazine’s Editor’s Choice Award, Design Journal Magazine’s Platinum ADEX Award and recognition from the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America.

“Awards are great,” quips Pitlor. “But what I’m more happy about is that it looks like we’re going to be winning a lot of sales in the near future.“

Pitlor recently hired three sales reps and Accessmount’s commercial recessed-can mounting system is already being specified into colleges, commercial retail sites and hotel projects around the country.

“There are lots of different ways of getting development done, but the team approach PDD uses is the best in my opinion,” said Pitlor. “MAGNET PDD fills the design and engineering gaps that my small company has. Their engineers took my concept from an ideation stage to completed prototypes. They had the expertise in plastics, metal, electrical engineering and testing expertise that saved my company a lot of money when we brought the product to the final manufacturing stage.”