German lighting company GLP has opened a new office in North America with Mark Ravenhill, GLP’s director of Global Key Players and formerly of Martin Professional, leading the operation. The Los Angeles location is in the densely populated industrial district of Torrance, a traditional West Coast heartland for show production and event staging.

Elation Professional will remain GLP’s distributor for the Impression range. But this development will enable the company to offer Elation much closer support, according to Ravenhill, who retains his position as director of Global Key Players. “It is a great opportunity to further exploit the enormous success of the expanding Impression range and at the same time reunite with my friends and colleagues in the industry over here,” says Ravenhill.

AnnaLise Laundrup, also formerly of Martin Professional as international exhibition and events manager, also joins the Los Angeles office. A multilingual, native Dane, she has worked all over the world and presently resides in Los Angeles.

In addition, GLP North America will be handling direct sales and marketing of the G-LEC range of video LED products into the marketplace (the company having recently been acquired by GLP). 

Eric Loader, director of sales for Elation Professional, says, “We have had tremendous success with the Impression over the past two years, and with the new Impression RZ120, Volkslicht and Meisterstuck following on from the XL, having Mark and AnnaLise here to help us promote these products to the US market will only help grow our mutual success.”

Kasper Gissel, GLP business director, adds, “The move is in line with our strategy for growth. The Impression range of LED heads has surpassed all expectations and has quickly become the de facto standard in high-output, low-wattage luminaires, particularly for television, location lighting and concert stage lighting. Therefore Los Angeles is the obvious location for our new office.”