Putting a ‘spark’ into the Waupaca area

Cheryl Hentz

Contributor

August 4, 2025

WAUPACA – Though Marks Electric of Waupaca has only been in business since April, what Owners Randy and Lina Marks bring to the area is 14-plus years of experience and a love of the Badger State.

Appleton native Randy, 44, said his family moved to Florida when he was a young child.

He said he’s been doing electrical work since he was 18 years old.

After high school, Randy said he attended a vocational school and continued pursuing his education until he became a master electrician.

“I was always interested in the trades,” he said. “My dad was an excavator, and I tried that for a little bit during summer break from school, but I found it boring. I was always a tinkerer and enjoyed taking things apart.”

Then, Randy said, he met a master electrician.

“He was a little bit older than me, [but] we became friends,” he said. “He eventually asked me if I’d be interested in becoming an electrician if he got me a job with one of the employers he used to work for when he was coming up through the trades. I got that job, and it was the only company I ever worked for [as an electrician] before starting my own company.”

Randy said he never envisioned owning his own company. 

“I had no real interest in being in business for myself, because I had a really good job, and I was learning a lot along the way,” he said. 

Then the 2008 recession hit, and Randy said the industry suffered.

“Coming out of that recession… things were still so bad workwise that I found it better for me to go out on my own,” he said.

Randy said he got his license, convinced a former coworker to join him on the venture and was off and running – starting Marks Electric in Naples, Florida, in early 2011.

Though things were slow in the beginning, Randy said the business slowly grew.

The size of the Naples team, Randy said, has fluctuated over the years, but today it has six employees, including him and a woman named Neva, who he said started as an apprentice when she was 18 years old and today serves as general manager.

From Florida back to Wisconsin

Randy said after he met his future wife, German native Lina, after college in Florida – the plan was always to eventually move back to Wisconsin.

Thanks to the low interest rates that accompanied the COVID-19 pandemic, Randy said he and Lina purchased a home in the Waupaca area – which was to serve as a vacation home and eventually their retirement home.

But shortly after purchasing the house, Randy said plans changed.

“I was playing around on my phone [while staying at the house in Wisconsin], and Lina asked what I was doing,” he said. “I told her I had just enrolled the kids in school and that we were staying.”

Randy said while sitting around the campfire with his family, he realized he wanted a slower-paced life, a better school system and an overall better quality of life for their three kids, aged 14, 11 and seven.

Ever since then, Randy said he’s been working remotely for the Naples business, handling a lot of the back office stuff.

“With technology as it is today, I could be anywhere in the world and run the business down there,” he said. “I don’t take customer calls anymore now that we have Neva running things in Naples, but I still do all the payroll, order materials for them if it’s a specialty thing and I review estimates and invoices. I still spend two or three hours a night just making sure everything is running well.”

Randy said he also supports the guys in the field.

“They’ll still call me if they have a technical question,” he said. “But, it’s a well-oiled machine, so I don’t get a whole lot of calls from them anymore.”

Being able to run the Naples business remotely and leave the day-to-day operations to his staff in Florida, Randy said, afforded him and Lina to start Marks Electric in Waupaca. 

“It’s like the stars were aligned for us to still earn a living, keep our business and our house in Florida, live here and now start a business here,” he said.

Finding a niche market

Right now, Randy said Marks Electric in Waupaca is primarily focused on handling residential jobs, a move that could be a niche for it. 

After talking to a lot of people in the Waupaca area, Randy said he heard one resounding message: there’s a shortage of people working in the trades and very few are focused on smaller jobs, especially residential ones.  

“I even experienced that myself when I was looking for a plumber, an HVAC technician or someone else to work on stuff in my own house,” he said. “There’s a shortage, and with those who are in the trades, they’re very busy, and it can be as much as a three- or four-week wait.”

With that in mind, Randy said focusing Marks Electric of Waupaca’s work on smaller, residential jobs made sense.

Some of what he’s done so far, he said, includes basic home electrical repairs and panel changeouts, as well as doing work for people who were doing home and garage additions, lighting upgrades, under-cabinet lighting in kitchens and adding outlets. 

“They’re basically smaller jobs that other companies don’t necessarily want to do,” he said. “I’m also focusing on service right now. We’re not there to sell someone a generator or upgrade their electrical panel, unless it needs to be upgraded. If someone just wants an outlet added or an outlet fixed, that’s all we’re there for – [we’re] not trying to sell them everything under the sun.” 

Randy said they’ve also set up some homes for portable generator use – which can come in handy if there are power outages during severe storms in the summer or even ice storms in the winter, something that has happened to them a couple of times since moving here. 

“So, we put an inlet on the outside of your house where you can plug in a portable generator and safely turn off your power in your house and backfeed it without backfeeding into the grid,” he said. “It meets code, but it’s a simple way of doing it, and it’s not very expensive compared to doing a whole house generator. You can run your essentials like your deep-freezer, your refrigerator and lights, your well pump, if you’re in a rural area, and those kinds of things.”

Randy said he will eventually start doing some commercial work through the Waupaca business, like he previously did in Florida. 

There, he said he had a 50-foot bucket lift and did a lot of street light installations and repairs.

Randy said he may eventually offer those services in the Waupaca area, too, if there’s a need.

Regardless of the need, he said Marks Electric focuses on personal service where, especially right now, you’re going to get the owner of the company coming out to handle your needs – a master electrician of 20-plus years. 

“We also offer prompt service… the ability to get to someone the next day or the following, instead of three weeks from now, is something else that sets us apart,” he said. “Sometimes, when you need someone, you need them [right then]. And we take great pride in our work and always want to leave the customer happy.”

In addition to helping with both locations’ bookkeeping, Randy said Lina also works alongside him in the field.

“She’s registered as an electrician in Wisconsin, and she’s working toward her journeyman license, which she’ll probably be taking the test for in a couple of years,” he said. “So, she’ll have the experience under her belt by then, too.”

Randy said Lina currently serves as his apprentice, per se.

“She comes with me to almost every single job, and we do it together,” he said. “And our son comes in and helps a little bit since he’s out of school for the summer. He can only do so much legally, but he helps organize the truck and cleans up and stuff like that.”

Not enough electricians

One challenge the entire industry faces, Randy said, is a lack of people entering the trades.

“It’s tough finding people who want to do this trade,” he said. “There are a lot of aging electricians, and as they retire, I don’t think enough people are coming in to replace them. I think that’s the same for any trade.”

With his wife pursuing the career and Neva running his Florida business, Randy said he continually encourages females to consider a career as an electrician.

“This trade is not physically demanding where you have to be able to bench press 240 pounds to be able to do it,” he said. “You just have to be smart and willing to learn… I wish more women would pursue the trades.”

What the future holds

Randy said business for Marks Electric of Waupaca is coming mostly through word-of-mouth advertising right now and making a lot of contacts through the local chamber.

Though the company’s website isn’t up and running quite yet, Randy said they are active on Facebook.

The future, he said, will hopefully include another Marks on the payroll.

“In 10 years, my son will be 24, and hopefully by then, he’ll be finished with his apprenticeship and eligible to get his [master electrician license],” he said.

In a perfect world, Randy said he’d like the company here and in Florida to remain family-owned businesses and have a handful of employees each.

Randy said he has already received inquiries from potential apprentices – and although he isn’t accepting any right now because the Waupaca branch of the company is just a few months old, the plan is to bring one on next year.