Orion Innovation Partners, Inc. is the amalgamation and evolution of a business that started as a multi-generation family company in Wisconsin and the U.P. of Michigan and which has grown and expanded to serve the Rocky Mountain and Southwest regions of the United States. With a robust team of sales professionals physically located in AZ, CO, ID, KS, MO, UT, and WI, we cover AZ, CO, ID, S. IL, KS, the U.P. of MI, MO, MT, NE, NM, NV, W. SD, Greater El Paso, TX area, UT, WI, and WY. See where we cover here.

Our history began when Harold Mercer started the Harold Mercer Company around 1923 and became the first manufacturer’s representative for the Furnas Electric Company. Generations of Mercers continued to provide the Midwest with quality industrial solutions all the way through the successful career of Jon Mercer.

With Jon’s retirement at the end of 2014, he entrusted the continuation of his family’s legacy to Ryan Freund in 2015. A commitment to the Mercer tradition has been a cornerstone for the team – a group of like-minded and hardworking sales professionals who are more like friends than co-workers.

The depth of our company expanded in October 2020, when the expertise and history of MTECH Wisconsin, Inc. merged into our business. That company, which Kevin Mahoney started in 1991, lives on through the incredible business he and his team developed in the WI and U.P. territories, the quality manufacturers they represented, and the talented team they built.

Our company expanded yet again in January 2025. That expansion was not just into new market segments with new manufacturers but into new geographies, as well, with the merging of Rocky Mountain Electrical Specifications into our business. Kirk Thorne started RM Elec Spec in 2008, and the RMES team has gained a reputation in the Rocky Mountain region for being an innovative, experienced, and collaborative sales organization.

The Rocky Mountain presence led to further expansion into the Southwest region of the US in May 2025.

July 1, 2026 brought another opportunity to expand into the Heartland region of the US. In collaboration with Mark Oldenburg and Quinton Wells of KW Sales, we executed a smooth transition plan, in collaboration with a portion of their manufacturers, to ensure solid growth and service well into the future.

These expansions have caused us to think deeply about the name of our company, and that prompted our name change to Orion Innovation Partners, Inc. on January 1, 2025. Orion, the hunter constellation, is one of the most prominent constellations in the northern hemisphere. Not only does it have physical significance across our whole geography, but it also represents the type of sales organization we strive to embody. In fact, each word in our company name has meaning – we are a team of sales professionals who work in partnership with innovative manufacturers to bring their solutions to market and who serve as trusted advisors to our customers.

While our company has grown and evolved over time, we have remained committed to the same core values – to deliver growth for our manufacturers and best-in-class solutions to our customers, all while doing something we love with people we care about!