Vantage LED USA Moves Headquarters ‘Back Home’ to Corona, California
The company moved away to Ontario, about 20 miles away, in 2015, but always knew it would end up back in Corona, founder Chris Ma says.
Ontario, California-based LED sign manufacturer Vantage LED USA celebrates 15 years of delivering innovative LED displays, announces the move of its headquarters “back home” to Corona, from Ontario, California, “where it all started.”
“This is a homecoming to me,” says Ivan Perez, resource director at Vantage LED USA. “The city of Corona has reached out on multiple occasions to welcome us back. The mayor, city council, everyone here … it feels good.”
According to the company’s announcement, Vantage officially started in 2003 among a group of friends dedicated to simplifying how outdoor LED displays were designed, built, and operated. In 2012, the company established roots in its first major manufacturing facility in Corona. The company notes that its high-profile projects have included installations in Las Vegas and at the World Cup. It also touts what it calls its industry-first 100 percent cloud-based LED software.
During a major expansion in 2015, they moved into a much larger facility in Ontario, California.
“That move was completely nuts, but the timing was right,” says Chris Ma, founder and CEO of the company. “We had an amazing 3 ½ years there … and our growth was astounding, but we felt a bit homesick. Everyone was longing to go back, and we knew it would happen eventually. And again, the timing was right.
The two cities are both east of Los Angeles, about 20 miles apart.
Vantage describes its move back as a team effort.
“So immediately after the 2019 new year celebrations, everyone at Vantage rallied together, rented some trucks, and moved back to Corona … grass-roots style. According to Kyle Carnes, CIO of Vantage LED USA, this helped continue the ‘team-building culture’ at the company.”
“Of course, we had professional movers take care of the big machinery stuff,” Carnes says, “but taking care of business ourselves is the Vantage-style through and through. We love working together, so this was another amazing opportunity to get to know each other even more, have fun, and just hangout. We literally rented big box trucks, packed them up ourselves, and made the journey back and forth about 27 times. It was incredible!”
Vantage says it was up and running within a week of the move, shipping out displays and setting up customer visits.
The new address for the company is 1580 Magnolia Ave. in Corona.
“It was great to see our warehouse crews pull together to get this done, and of course, hang out with all of them,” says Ma. “Our new building is very modern, and the production floor is a lot more functional with a lot of natural light … and we already made plans to install solar panels which should help lower our carbon footprint. It’s great to be back in Corona.”
Three years ago Ma announced that he was converting the company to an Employee Stock Ownership Plan, or ESOP.
Darrell Talbert, city manager, says it was great to have the company back and called Vantage “a great asset to our business community.”
