Robert Ponstingle, 2025 recipient of the IEC National Future Impact Award, is a second-generation owner and vice president at DNS Technologies Inc. in the greater Cleveland area. The award recognizes members who consistently support IEC both nationally and within their chapter through dedication and active involvement. They demonstrate leadership, influence the profession, and represent the next generation of electrical professionals ready to lead and inspire others to achieve their goals.
For a usually behind-the-scenes kind of guy like Bob, he sums up his active IEC involvement to a simple yet steadfast desire to “give something back.” Winning this IEC National Award shows him that his efforts are noticed.
“Bob has applied the lessons he’s learned from running and growing a successful electrical company to everything he does for our chapter,” Paige Rinker, executive director at IEC Northern Ohio, says on the award nomination form. “He holds his students to the same high standards and firm deadlines he expects from his employees, modeling the mindset and behaviors of a successful master electrician and business owner. His students know he never asks them to give more effort than he has already put in himself. Over time, this consistency — paired with his visible commitment to their success — has earned their trust and respect.”
Bob says a couple of his former students contributed to his award nomination application. One of those students is a young man who graduated high school right before COVID-19 hit and attempted to pursue a college path online, but found that wasn’t right for him. He then went to work for an electrical contractor who enrolled him in the IEC Apprenticeship Program. After taking Bob’s class, the student shared that Bob made him “love to learn again.”
Bob and brother Dave as construction of DNS Technologies’ world headquarters begins in Berea, OH.
Family Owned; Family Led
The origin of DNS Technologies dates back to 1980, when Bob’s parents, Paul and Joanne, followed their entrepreneurial heart and launched the company, then called P&J Electrical Services.
“When I was younger, I had an interest in the trade and started working during the summers for Dad,” Bob recalls. “My grandfather was an electronics technician and also an entrepreneur fixing televisions and things like that. He once had a contract working at NASA during the Apollo mission. There is definitely a passion in the family for all things electrical.”
Bob says he became full time at P&J Electrical Services right after high school graduation in 1997. At that time, P&J Electrical was an ABC member, and Paul was an electrical instructor there for over 30 years. Bob did his apprenticeship with ABC, although he did not have his dad as an instructor. Paul taught first year, and Bob was able to test out of that first year of classes.
“In 1997, the company had about 10 employees,” he says. “We have grown to a total staff today of 36, with 30 working in the field every day. We see room for some more growth in our company with everything that needs to be powered today. IEC’s third-party research indicates the demand is there.”
And, of course, they have experienced many changes and driven new innovations and direction while staying true to the company values of old-school business ethics and commitment to customers.
Bob and brother Dave as construction of DNS Technologies’ world headquarters begins in Berea, OH.In 2004, P&J Electrical merged with a limited energy contractor run by a dad and his two sons, allowing P&J to expand its service offerings. Bob says that company’s name was Dad and Sons. That same year, the Ponstingles changed their company name from P&J Electrical Services to DNS Technologies Inc.
“The DNS comes from that merger with Dad and Sons,” Bob explains. “We liked ‘Technologies,’ as it was a bit ambiguous and would allow us to enter into other markets as needed to do other things beyond typical electrical contracting. Although most of our work is electrical in the commercial, industrial, and healthcare spaces, we also do offer fire alarm, tele/data (copper and fiber), security camera systems, card access, and dabble in network solutions as well.”
Bob and his older brother Dave, who is DNS president, became co-owners in 2006, when their dad decided to retire early and hand over the reins to his sons.
“I was 26 years old at that moment in time,” Bob notes.
Bob mentions he was not scared to take on that level of responsibility as a young man as he felt prepared. By working with his dad, seeing his grandfather’s work ethic, standing side by side with his brother, and feeling properly trained with a lot of valuable experience, he knew he had seen most of the good and the bad the industry had in store for them. Since he and Dave saw how ready their dad had been to retire at 55, they are doing the best they can to distribute the company workload and not burn themselves out.
“At DNS Technologies, we do live the merit shop philosophy, and we promote from within and pay based on work performance,” he says. “We have created a company structure for our employees to move vertically within our organization, and we operate in a manner that helps employees learn correctly and quickly. Extra training with our younger apprentices helps them and also helps the journeymen and foremen in the field get the most from each apprentice.”
One way they do this is the company’s “0, 30, 60, 90 program” for new apprentices. Bob and Dave offer two types of assistance through this program. Bob concentrates on the hands-on technical area.
“I give them flashcards every 30 days that they have to study,” Bob says. “This way they can identify parts and materials from day one. If someone asks them to bring them the beam clamps, they don’t have to ask, ‘What are beam clamps?’ Instead, they can go get them quickly. We then move into conduit bending, how to use and deal with MC cable, safety, basic hand tools, and then move to conduit benders, bandsaws, hammer drills, and things like that. I have them actively putting in anchors, cutting and bending conduit, roughing in a wall from a drawing, and more. This is on top of all my brother’s mentoring on company core values and how you apply those core values to daily life and on the jobsite.”
This effort is the best way Bob and Dave know to assess whether new employees “fit” the trade and the company. Bob wants to see if they are picking things up and if they are enjoying it — are they having fun? It’s also a good method for seeing whether these employees should move on with their training to the IEC Northern Ohio Apprenticeship Program. Classes there have a fall start date, and students go one night each week. They choose either 100% in-person class or 100% virtual (through IEC Chesapeake); there is no mixed version offered.
Bob says DNS project managers, foremen, and journeymen also have a say in who should advance to chapter training in order to pursue a career with DNS Technologies. In addition to Bob and Dave, who are both around the 30-year mark with the company, Bob points to several current employees with longevity, like Jennifer at 33, Uncle John at 36 (though now part-time), and John-John at 34. DNS seeks and nurtures employees who want long- term careers with the company.
For the 2026–2027 school year, DNS Technologies has seven enrolled apprentices — two in their third year and five beginning their journey.
To support company growth, DNS Technologies built a new home office in Berea, OH, about 4 miles southwest of Cleveland Hopkins International Airport.
“We jokingly call it our world headquarters, and it is 13 miles from Public Square in the heart of downtown Cleveland,” Bob says. “The new building gives us a little more space, and it’s just 2 miles down the road from our previous office, so we stayed in the same neighborhood.”
Another conscious move they are making to better distribute workload and responsibility is more opportunities for employees after apprenticeship is completed and they move vertically within the organization.
“I hold our electrical contractor state license, but we are taking steps to have a few key employees get theirs as well,” Bob notes.
Great Training Is Everything
Like his father before him, Bob invests directly in the next generation of electricians by serving as an instructor. For Bob, it’s with IEC Northern Ohio. He also is doing all he can to contribute to improving that training wherever possible.
“I started instructing in the 2023–2024 school year with second-year students,” Bob says. “Because of a vacancy at the end of that 23–24 school year, I decided to make the move with my students to third-year instruction. Fall 2026 will be year number three of me teaching third- year students.”
Bob mentions that for the 2024–2025 school year, IEC Northern Ohio left a lease agreement at a local career center and moved into its own space, which gave the chapter the ability to create a new lab with hands-on opportunities. This, he says, has been a great move forward for providing chapter students with additional ways to learn important electrical skills.
“The problem with renting space was that we couldn’t do any labs there because of insurance reasons,” Bob explains. “Hands-on training is so important, as we learn by doing, right?”
Building out the new chapter training center was a big job — so it got creative. The chapter involved its instructors and partners to do the renovations and involved the students to create what would be their learning space. If working side by side with experienced electricians (and their instructors) wasn’t enough on its own, Bob says the chapter made an offer to apprentices “that they couldn’t refuse.” For every hour an apprentice worked on lab renovations under the supervision of their instructors, an hour could be banked as official class makeup time.
“We had one kid working for a company that traditionally works out of town quite a bit, so he was able to put that bank to good use,” Bob says. “It helped him out a little bit.”
Because Bob believes deeply in hands- on training, he’s taken the lead at the chapter on these renovations and with improvements that continue today.
Paige and Bob visited IEC Greater Cincinnati and got great ideas for some labs that they plan to put together for use in IEC Northern Ohio. Bob says this is just one of the many amazing networking opportunities he has received through his IEC membership and his deep chapter involvement.
Another benefit of his involvement as an instructor is his own continual learning and his ability and confidence to lead.
“I learn something new every week as I prepare and teach classes,” he says. “I’ve also grown in my abilities and moved a bit out of that ‘behind- the-scenes type of guy.’ Teaching has made me not afraid to speak in public. In fact, Paige asked me to speak at the 2026 graduation, and this is something I never would have said yes to before. It also helped that I had 16 people in that audience who I was talking to directly.”
Those 16 people were graduates who were in Bob’s first class when he started teaching at the chapter.
IEC Membership Makes Us Better
Bob and Dave started attending IEC SPARK conventions around 2016. As they reaped more and more benefits, they continued to add to the ways they utilized IEC services and did their part to assist the organization both locally and nationally.
Dave is treasurer on the Board of Directors with IEC Northern Ohio and is a regional director, Midwest Region, on the IEC National Board of Directors.
New for the brothers this year was joining an IEC Forum Group, small groups of contractors from different regions who gather to have the hard conversations and share strategies about everything from industry trends to business challenges to employee productivity to recruitment and retention.
“We met with our group in Phoenix in February, and it was pretty interesting,” Bob reports. “We had more financial conversations than anything else, but there also were discussions about manpower and workforce issues. It was fresh and new to us but definitely gives us more friends throughout the country.”
While Forum Groups offer planned opportunities for frank discussion with noncompetitors, Bob always has felt the willingness of fellow IEC members to network on mutual concerns. He provides several examples.
“We have a GC who also works in Florida, and he was having trouble connecting with local electrical contractors,” Bob remembers. “He couldn’t get anyone to call him back. DNS sent him the phone number for the executive director of one of the local IEC chapters, and they hooked him up with a contractor that’s doing great for them.”
Bob provides numerous examples of how IEC membership has helped his company. He called upon an IEC friend in Nebraska during COVID-19, when DNS was having trouble securing fuses in Ohio. That friend bought what Bob needed and shipped it via FedEx from his supply house to DNS. Bob loaned a tool to a fellow contractor in the area who is also an IEC Northern Ohio instructor. He brought a strong partner for DNS, nVent, into the chapter fold to run annual apprentice training. He became the limited energy source for a local contractor who doesn’t have employees with these skill sets; DNS can jump in to help that contractor take good care of a customer. Finally, he has called upon many of the friends he has met during SPARK and other IEC events to talk through situations that come up.
“These are things that IEC membership has brought to our company, and it’s the main reason we are involved,” Bob says. “I feel that the IEC holds very high moral and ethical standards for all of those involved in the organization. There is integrity here. The whole ‘what you do behind closed doors when no one is looking’ kind of integrity. That’s the type of contractors we’ve met through IEC.”
Family Matters
Bob married his wife, Angela, in 2020, and says “a COVID wedding was pretty difficult to navigate with all the changing rules.” Their outdoor engagement picture in downtown Cleveland (above) stands as a reminder of the times.
“My wife and I do like to travel quite a bit and have been to places like Barbados, the Florida Keys, Colorado, Nashville, Las Vegas, Costa Rica,” he says. “We also go to quite a few concerts as well; recent adventures include Aerosmith, Garth Brooks, Eric Church, and Kenny Chesney. We have a ‘tiny house’ on Lake Erie, which we try to get to most weekends, and I do enjoy running with a group here in Cleveland and have finished several half and full marathons over the last few years.”