Meet Amy Margolin of M&M Lighting in Galleria

Today we’d like to introduce you to Amy Margolin.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Amy. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
We are truly a Houston born-and-bred store. My grandfather, Joseph Margolin, started the company in 1961 a few miles down the road from where we are today, and a juicy bit of folklore is that the man he went into business with (the other “M” in M&M) embezzled money from the company and fled the city shortly thereafter. My father was raised in the business, counting light bulbs in the warehouse by the age of 8 and working at the store all throughout high school and college. In fact, I think college was an afterthought for him. (Sorry, U of H!) Somewhat of a shocker is that my brother and I were never forced to work for the business. We were brought up in Fondren Southwest – we went to school just down the street from Beyonce’s middle school (Hey, Bey!) – and then we moved to Meyerland where both of us went to Bellaire High School, just down the road from where we work today. I worked very hard to graduate at the top of my class at Bellaire and went on to college in New York City, never in a million years dreaming I’d be back in Houston working at M&M.

Life works in strange ways though, as most people know. I graduated college during the huge economic downturn in 2008 with an English degree of all things and knew it wouldn’t be practical to try to stay in the city. I ended up helping manage the original Anthropologie store in Austin on S. Lamar and then moving to LA to style celebrities for red carpet events. After a few years, as my lease was ending in LA, I realized I wasn’t fulfilled and began to grow curious about what this little lighting store that I never spent much time in growing up was all about. So, voila! My dad runs the day-to-day business operations, my brother works in our restaurant division, I’m heading up the showroom and marketing, and my mom recently came on board to help me out and has turned out to be one of our best salespeople on the floor!

Has it been a smooth road?
Oh, my! Is working with your entire family smooth? It never is! And truly, every aspect of this business is a challenge: retail is an ever-changing beast with the online sector being a huge disruptor, managing people and operations, dealing with technology shifts as LED and energy saving designs have flooded the market, it just never ends! Also, on a very real level, coming into a business where employees have been working for over 20, in some cases 40 years (yup, that’s right, one of my grandfather’s original employees still works for us to this day and had one of his strongest years in sales only two years ago).

I am constantly having to chip away at how things used to be to make way for new ideas and improvements. I still have warehouse workers tell me how my grandfather used to run the business and salesmen tell stories about “back when Mr. Margolin was alive.” My first few years I definitely felt like Sisyphus, rolling a boulder uphill every day, only for it to roll back down every night. I feel grateful though to be a part of something larger than myself. To know that we’ve provided lighting for so many wonderful institutions around town and that we’ve given people careers and opportunities to succeed and provided for them in a way that a large business would never is so heartening that I’ve never regretted my decision to move back and join the business.

We’d love to hear more about your business.
M&M Lighting is currently a three-part business, although we’re first and foremost a lighting distributor. We have a commercial lighting division that bids large-scale jobs in Houston and the surrounding areas, anything from lighting an oil company’s main campus to providing outdoor lighting for a public park. We also have a multi-family division, which works with developers around town to provide lighting for apartment buildings. Lastly, we have our showroom business, where salespeople work with contractors, home builders, remodelers, and electricians to provide a wide range of products and expertise on recess lighting, undercabinet lighting, lighting controls, landscape lighting, fans, light bulbs, and decorative fixtures. We’re known for having items in stock and providing value and service. I am most proud of our consistency and our ability to allow our employees to grow and succeed.

Is our city a good place to do what you do?
Houston is an amazing place for a small business! It’s such a dynamic place where people are constantly moving to for all sorts of jobs. And if they’re not moving here, they’re coming here for our advanced medical center and services. We have customers from Australia, England, France, Saudi Arabia, India, you name it. A French-speaking couple came in the other day for lighting up their new patisserie. Two friends from Louisiana were in looking for pieces for a new home. There’s a lot of movement, and we love it. My only complaints about our city other than our flooding are that it would be nice to have a more convenient mass transportation system. I used the rail line the other day and loved it! I also want to talk to our Congresspeople about the unfairness of the online marketplace, namely how websites can advertise free shipping and no tax and we’re expected to compete with that. We’re providing health insurance and long-term jobs for our community, we deserve to have a fair playing field. We’ll beat the price, but taxation should be fair.

Contact Info:

• Address: 5620 S. Rice Ave
• Website: mmlighting.com
• Phone: 713-667-5611
• Email: amy.margolin@mmlighting.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/MMLIGHTING
• Facebook: facebook.com/mandmlighting
• Twitter: twitter.com/mmlighting
• Yelp: yelp.com/biz/m-and-m-lighting-houston-2

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