Get A Grip On Lighting Podcast

Did you know that at 80 years of age, only one-fifth of the light reaches your eye as it did at 20? Eunice Noell-Waggoner has passionately studied the problem of inadequate lighting quality to maintain a healthy circadian rhythm, particularly in nursing homes.  You’ll be fascinated by some of her findings. The first half of Eunice’s professional career involved interior and lighting design for pub...

Where does the resistance to the adoption of darkness friendly lighting come from?  Michael poses this question to Peter Brown. Michael and Peter discuss how and if it’s even possible to get the industry on board. With over thirty years in the lighting industry, Mr. Brown has sales and marketing experience in distribution, manufacturing, auditing, design and installation; both in the C&I and p...

If you want to learn about the scientific aspects of lighting, check out Leukos. Henrik Clausen chats with the editor-in-chief, Kevin Houser, about his stringent vetting of submitted papers. At a 70% rejection rate, you can be assured that you are reading a rigorously peer reviewed journal. Besides his gig as Editor-in-chief of LEUKOS, Kevin [PhD, PE (NE), FIES, LC, LEED AP] is also a Professor at...

In this episode we delve into the love-hate relationship with lighting agents. Can distributors build relationships with agents when agent turnover is so high?  Billy & Jay and our hosts do their best to solve the problem! Interested in the magic of lighting since the theater in high school, Billy found Architectural Engineering at Penn State, became passionate about lighting design, and embar...

Scientific coordinator for the Mont-Megantic International Dark Sky Reserve, Rémi Boucher has been passionate about the starry sky and the night experience for many years. Do people believe that light pollution is actually pollution or a metaphor?  Michael and Rémi dive into this question and tackle the complexities of maneuvering through municipal and state/provincial governments,  environmentali...

Chris Dobroth has built a swanky website, social media plan and business strategy for selling decorative light fixtures.  He is an experienced eComm leader across multiple industries over the past 16-years, with a background in both start-up environments and large matrix-based organizations. In his own words, Chris is “living the dream.” Over eCommerce, Chris has sold gaming products, furniture, o...

In a past life, Jake cut his teeth working long hours in finance before pivoting towards his passion by earning a master's degree in industrial design.  That has led him to create Solar Echo, a company that is focusing on the circadian rhythm.  Yes, you’ve heard all about the circadian rhythm, but this is different. If Michael and Greg are excited about this, then you know there’s something to it.

David is the CEO and Founder of Countifi (formally Countalytics), an image analysis and data analytics company that focuses on helping hospitals, airlines, and universities manage inventory processes more efficiently. If you hate counting inventory like Michael does, you need to check out this episode. David doesn’t know anything about selling lights, but he can sure help you with your warehouse. ...

Mark is an award winning international lighting designer who leads the lighting profession across BDP. He has over 35 years’ experience and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA).  Mark tells us about his fascinating journey from theatre - operating a spotlight - to an international, award-winning, architectural lighting designer. Listen to Mark’s philosophy and, as he says, “the awards w...

Ms. Martinez-Nobles began her career as an intern at Fisher Marantz Stone in 2005 and is now a Principal in the firm.  Her endless scribbling and sketching as a child led to a Bachelor of Architectural Engineering at Pennsylvania State University.  Wouldn’t it be fun to just do design drawings all day!  But, in her position, Paula has to deal with clients and suppliers.  Listen to how Paula naviga...

Abdul Dremali is an Palestinian/Egyptian artist with a passion for the night sky. Currently based in Reno, Nevada, he travels the world in search of dark skies for his astrophotography. Abdul advocates some sensible solutions for restoring darkness. We should all follow his example of his relationship with the moon and the stars. And check out his photos at what is perhaps the suavest URL ever - a...

Henrik Clausen has been involved in lighting for over 30 years.  He is the founder of the Fagerhult Lighting Academy and currently holds a position as professor in Lighting Design at AAU in Copenhagen. As an accomplished keynote presenter, CEU provider, and former on-air CBS design expert, Deborah Burnett shares insights as to how the body and brain are directly impacted by the built environment....

Christopher Lewis is a graduate of Colorado State University Tech Journalism Program with studies in TV/Web/Broadcast. After many successful years working for others, Mr. Lewis founded Evergreen Applied Technologies in 2014.  Chris talks about his early success in E-commerce (selling while you sleep!), the history of LED’s, and the balance of always being honest but still needing to sell. Chris is...

Art is the President/Owner of the National Institute of Crime Prevention (NICP, Inc.), a global training and consulting company specializing in Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design. Art contradicts Michael’s anecdotal assertion that lighting up an area like a prison yard makes people act like criminals, with some solid stats that lighting up a high crime area actually reduces crime.  But...

C. Webster Marsh brings 14 years of applied experience with lighting and controls and is the owner of Penumbra Controls, where he provides lighting controls design and specification for a wide range of project types. Ron oversees Port’s Architectural and Theatrical Lighting Design & Installation departments, as well as our Lighting Control Systems and Equipment Sales teams. In this first episo...

Al Uszynski is an experienced executive with over 25 years of experience in the lighting industry. He is Principal of inside.lighting, an online media company that provides valuable insights and information to lighting industry professionals. Just like the title says, Al, Michael and Greg review 13 lighting predictions made by industry professionals you’ll know, like Trevor Palmer, the President o...

Founder of Equilume Ltd, Dr. Barbara Anne Murphy is Head of Equine Science and Programme Director of the BAgrSc Animal Science-Equine degree at University College Dublin.  Her research has led to a revolution in the Thoroughbred industry.  By administering blue light with the Equilume Light Mask, you can cue certain circadian and biological rhythm’s in your thoroughbred champion in order to breed...

Following teaching at the University of Florida, opening a roadside restaurant with a neon theme, apprenticing at a neon shop, opening his own custom neon sign business, and collecting old neon signs, he finally opened the Neon Museum of Philadelphia. Len tells us about the fascinating culture of neon, the dwindling supply of glass and artisans and how neon is quickly being superseded by LED.

Ruth is a lighting consultant with a background in engineering, lighting design and academia. She’s passionate about the role of daylight and sunlight in bringing buildings to life, and the impact of daylight exposure on the health and wellbeing of building occupants. Ruth,  Michael and Greg discuss the challenges of measuring negatives and positives.  That is, you can measure the effects of takin...

David Warfel is Midwestern farm boy turned lighting designer, author, and educator who passionately shares the gift of light.  David has extensive experience in lighting design, from theater to Las Vegas to cruise ships to pizza joints. In his own words, “there’s nothing magical about design.” His ideas are reasonable and sensible and aimed at making lives better.  You want nice interior lighting,...

Hannah Moon is a PhD Candidate at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa in Dr. Megan Porter’s vision lab.  Her work focuses on understanding the physiological and molecular aspects of light perception in birds and has won multiple awards at scientific conferences.  In other words, she’s trying to understand what birds are seeing. As you’ll hear, it goes beyond just the molecular structure of the bird...

Todd Straka currently serves as global industry director for UL’s Lighting and Electrical Products Retail business.  Michael and Greg grill Todd on product safety, the verification processes, labeling, surveillance and enforcement, and counterfeit labels.  This stuff will make your head spin but this episode will give you a better understanding of the topic.

Dr. Meredith Kernbach is a postdoctoral scholar at the University of South Florida, St. Petersburg in the lab of Dr. Mya Breitbart. For her doctoral dissertation, she studied how light pollution may affect zoonotic disease dynamics, specifically West Nile virus in House sparrows. Dr. Kernbach has found that even low light levels have allowed sparrows to hold the disease longer which means more mos...

Dr. Andreas Jechow is an interdisciplinary physicist with a broad expertise in photonics, the science of light. Earlier in his career Andreas worked in laser physics and quantum optics, for example on imaging the "shadow of a single atom" with lasers. In 2015, Andreas transitioned to environmental sciences where he applies his knowledge of light in research on light pollution.  Some of the fascina...

Active in the lighting business since 1982, Clay is the Owner & Managing Member of Starbeam Lighting and he served on the NAILD Board from 1997 to 2005 and as President from 2002 to 2003. In this podcast, Clay gives a brief history of Starbeam Lighting.  We discuss loyalty and pricing, how training evolved, from reading the old catalogues to LS Evolve.  Clay gives us some insight into where he...