Copper prices topping $4 per pound, layoffs of a reported 300 employees at Rexel, and the death of Hubbell's Glenn Swenson were big news at this week's NAED Eastern meeting, just finishing up at the Omni Orlando Resort in Orlando. Some industry observers said any 4Q boost in distributor sales might be tied closely to the run-up in copper prices, which breached $4 per pound yesterday.

The passing of Glenn Swenson hit home at the NAED meeting, as he was for years a familar face at Hubbell's famed cocktail parties at the regional meetings. The electrical industry's runners who wanted to join Glenn for an early morning run at an NAED meeting knew where to find him -- 6 am sharp in the lobby.

As a cub reporter at my NAED regional more than 25 years ago, I once met with a group of these early-morning runners in the lobby of a Disneyworld hotel. After I introduced myself as an editor for Electrical Wholesaling, Glenn told me firmly that I could run with them as long as nothing that was said on the run ended up in the pages of Electrical Marketing.