Get A Grip On Lighting Podcast

In 1994 Bob Crespo eloquently stated that his son Ray was “doing nothing” and asked if he wanted to start a business doing something environmental since Ray “loved the environment.”  And so, Energy Conservation and Supply was born.  Since then, Ray and company have been working on things like controls, UV disinfection and EV charging stations.

Samyukta is an advocate with the International Dark Sky Association, and a member of their International Committee. She currently works in Slovenia, designing experiences to help people connect with darkness and the night sky. Have you ever heard of Forest Bathing?  Well Samyukta can design a dark sky experience where you can go “Star Bathing.” Give this a listen and you’ll learn about “archeoastr...

If you were fascinated with the previous episode with Peter, listen to this one.  He’s an expert in the field of human perception, but when you’re talking about bringing back the night sky, you’re bound to go into weird and wonderful areas of conversation. This episode touches on flotation tanks, meditation and lucid dreaming. The hour will fly by. 

Justin is the President of Stouch Lighting, Inc, a LED and UVC distribution and implementation company. Stouch Lighting has had some pretty good success with UVC in the health field. There’s hygiene theater in a public school hallway, and there’s reducing infections by quantifiably inactivating pathogens in a hospital setting.  Justin is working successfully towards the latter.  Listen to this epi...

Kevin Houser [PhD, PE (NE), FIES, LC, LEED AP] is a Professor at Oregon State University with a joint appointment as Chief Engineer at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.  Dr. Houser is an expert in light and color. He has conducted research on human perceptual and biological responses to light. Do color rendering metrics have a racial bias?  How can lighting make everyone look radiant, healthy...

Daniel has over 25 years of experience in the lighting industry as lighting designer, manufacturer, sales rep, teacher, and consultant. He currently serves as ICF Lead Lighting Consultant for ENERGY STAR. In this episode, the wide-ranging topics include LED flicker, CRI and The Department of Energy. Daniel is also Chair of the NCQLP Examination Committee. No, you’re not going to get any answers to...

Welcome to the premiere episode of Contrast Ratios with hosts Edward Bartholomew and John Arthur Wilson.  Edward is the Principal of Bartholomew Lighting ( https://sites.google.com/view/bartholomew-lighting ) and John is the founding director of Fernhill Shopworks ( https://www.fernhillshopworks.com ). Edward and John reveal some of the "awkward" and raw topics from their podcast.

Oliver Moorhouse is the Head of Business Development for BrainLit North America Inc a subsidiary of  BrainLit AB, the developer and IP holder for BioCentric Lighting™. We’ve talked about human centric lighting before, which Brainlit likes to call “BioCentric” lighting. Never mind controls on the wall, Oliver talks about wearables - now you just walk into a room and the lighting changes to just how...

Dr. Rajaram Bhagavathula is a Senior Research Associate in the Division of Vehicle, Driver, & System Safety at Virginia Tech Transportation Institute. Dr. Bhagavathula has conducted some fascinating studies on the effects of light on drivers.  He talks about the effects of glare and light bands on driver behaviour, the hypnotic effect, the moth effect, dashboard lights… you'll never drive the...

Ali joined Heliospectra as CEO in 2017. With him he brought his passion for people and technology with 22 years of international business leadership experience to his position at the helm of Heliospectra. Ali and Heliospectra are on the cutting edge of horticultural LED lighting.  With their light spectrum controlled lighting and software, “communicating” with plants to make them healthier and tas...

Robert is the founder and CEO of the Canadian Scotobiology Group Inc. that raises awareness of the impact of artificial light at night (ALAN) on wildlife and human health. Robert talks about “Eco Lights,” how much light you actually need in order to read, the shelf life of hormones and many other fascinating darkness related topics.  He even references the Moody Blues.

Angie Koch is the President and founder of Premier Lighting. Angie shares her entrepreneurial story, and what her role encompasses in the company. Greg, your Get a Grip On Lighting host is also an owner of the company, so they both share how he came on board, all those years ago, what they’re up to and where Premier is going.

James Tu is a visionary entrepreneur and the Chairman & CEO of Energy Focus.  In this episode we discuss the challenges and opportunities of the Human Centric Lighting "umbrella" which includes circadian, cuing, tuning, wellness and injury prevention.  The choice vs prescriptive circle is squared.   Finally, James refers to the scientific literature and to the massive opportunity the lighting...

Peter has a PhD in Psychology studying human perception, action, and the link between them, with over a decade of experience in conducting research in these topics. Blue light, glare bombs, perception, infrared medicine...these are just a few of the fascinating things touched upon.  We only scratched the surface with Peter.  He’ll be back. 

Robert Soler is a co-founder of BIOS Lighting. Almost everyone has trouble sleeping - including your customers. The Bios Institute will train you to be a “Circadian Auditor” to assess lighted environments from a human health perspective. And guess what? That’s going to lead to sales!

  Frank Agraz has worked in the energy efficient lighting community for 25+ years and serves as Director of the C&I Engineering department at Eco Engineering.  Frank tells us about his stint as the Exam Committee Chair.  He won’t give away any answers, but he’ll tell a bit about the background of creating and administering the exams.  Gotta get your LC! 

Andy has been involved in astronomy education and outreach for over 25 years, and in the planetarium field for over 20.  Andy tells us about his successful techniques for teaching kids about the night sky. He’s also had some wins in cases involving “light privilege” and just plain ignorance. Inspiring.

Mike Quijano currently serves as the Strategic Marketing Director for Cooper’s Ephesus Sports Lighting business. From community soccer fields to professional football stadiums, Ephesus Sports Lighting has learned to mitigate the problems with overheating in high wattage extreme application LED’s.  They have enhanced controllability by a magnitude while simplifying it and are addressing the challen...

Jan Denneman is Founder and Chairman of the Board at Good Light Group as well as Honorary Ambassador Global Lighting Association. We’ve been arguing for a while that quality darkness is essential to good sleep. Jan contends that good light during the day is also essential to our circadian rhythm for a good night's sleep.

Barry Johnson is the volunteer webmaster for the Pennsylvania Outdoor Lighting Council, as well as a lecturer and consultant on outdoor lighting issues. In his retirement, Barry is a crusader against light trespass and pollution.  If you live in Pennsylvania and your neighbor’s flood light illuminates your bedroom wall, give Barry and his fellow POL Council members a call.    Contact Barry @ http:...

Simon is the Chief Technology Officer and founder of Silvair and Chair of the Mesh Working Group at Bluetooth SIG. Michael and Greg have been expounding the need for controls in lighting for some time now. Along comes Simon and Bluetooth mesh networking. Revolutionary stuff.

Valerie Stimac Bailey is a travel, space, and astrotourism writer. She founded Space Tourism Guide in 2017, and her first book Dark Skies: A Practical Guide to Astrotourism was published by Lonely Planet in 2019. Valerie thinks that space travel will be available as a “bucket list” goal to the average person in the not too distant future. In the meantime, let’s make the night sky accessible to eve...

You already know our old friend Tom Butters. He has years of training experience in the lighting industry, including a stint at the Philips Lighting Concept Centre.  Now Tom has funneled all that knowledge into The Lighting Agora ( lightingagora.com ). Tom and his organization can help you do your job quicker, better and more confidently and that, of course, leads to better revenue.

Our guests, Brian Walker Ph. D and Kelly Gordon are here to talk about the L-Prize. Brian is the manager of DOE’s Lighting Research and Development program and Kelly is the Program Manager at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. What is the L-Prize? Go here - https://www.energy.gov/eere/ssl/l-prize-competition - for the description. But suffice to say, if you want a piece of the 12.2 million dol...

Deep Anand is an astronomy lover and dark sky enthusiast. Deep has been working to spread awareness about light pollution, from his home base in Delhi India. Deep is passionate about bringing the night sky back for the children. Maybe he’ll even get this issue onto the Prime Minister of India's desk. Deep has even written poetry about the night sky and the stars. And get this - he’s only 17!