Get A Grip On Lighting Podcast

Kevin Poyck just had his legs under him as CEO and President of Signify’s Americas Market Group when the outbreak threw his business into chaos. He shares his thoughts on virtual offices, managing at a distance, and the shape of post-pandemic normalcy. What really brought him to our show today was a recent study at Boston University that confirmed how effective a new Signify UVC lamp really is, wh...

Ray Molony edits Lux Review, and in one month into lockdown he wrote what he considered to be the eight effects the lighting sector will see coming out of the current health crisis. Read that here: https://www.luxreview.com/2020/04/14/8-effects-of-the-crisis-on-the-lighting-sector/. After seeing it we had to invite him to push back and expand on his ideas, we shared our thoughts on established bra...

Signify’s Robert Lee returns to the show to elaborate on an article he wrote for LEDs Magazine on what SSL lighting will look like in 2030 - you can read it here: https://www.ledsmagazine.com/smart-lighting-iot/article/14168528/picture-the-future-of-ssl-within-the-mirror-world-magazine We get into the technologies that will converge to make the next decade of lighting a mirrorworld of augmented re...

Jim Colantoni starts our conversation with him explaining the background of his company and how they’re working to create lighting tools for health and wellness. We get into the background and particulars of UVC technologies. Michael and Greg delve into discussions of safety concerns, future building codes, the lack of efficiency of LED in this case, confrontations with buzzwords, and the growing...

The King of Lighting, Ellis Yan, returns to the main series and he brought Lesley Matt, Senior VP of Sales at TCP Along with him. They share their current virtual lunch and learn series, and the company’s own rebate and incentive program before diving into the real lighting dork content with us. We discussed offering more colors, building drivers, modularity and replaceable parts in outdoor lighti...

We’re taking a short break from our usual lighting dork topics this week to chat with Tyler Gildin about his documentary The Starfish, which profiles his grandfather’s journey from Nazi Germany to Sweden, across the USSR, and over the pacific ocean to reunite with his parents. Chatting about Herb Gildin’s life in America and building Satco leads to discussions of overcoming adversity, building a b...

Tom Beckett and some colleagues in his side of lighting spent three years setting up an ANSI certification for flashlights, and once they were done they turned that team into the Portable Lights American Trade Organization to maintain standards across seven metrics as the industry moved into LED. We talked over testing procedures, the issue of enforcement versus advising members, and learning to w...

In April, the Illuminating Engineering Society and the International Dark Sky Association released a joint statement on the five practices to best confront light pollution. We’re here to speak with IDA’s Ruskin Hartley and the IES’ Brian Liebel about that, and the broader implications of electric light at night. Light pollution is real pollution, it’s something we create that harms people and anim...

4-time guest Mark Lien returns to act as the lighting industry’s very own futurist. We discussed the ease of charting the direction of change as opposed to predicting its pace, the marking of epochs, where our particular businesses stand at the moment, lighting controls leaving lighting’s hands, and other long term trends for our field. Also on the discussion slate: contemporary geopolitics, macro...

Westlite’s Brenda Puckett knows that there’s no constant in our industry but change, and that if you can’t be an agent for change your company won’t thrive. We joined her at her office earlier this year to chat about doing more than selling bulbs to people, conservation in the era of throwaway tech, trying to keep things simple as SKUs pile up and we replace whole fixtures, as well as the question...

We’ve noticed a spike in requests for UV lamps and fixtures recently and aside from reading the side of the box over the phone, we don’t have a clue what to tell anyone. Fortunately, Karl Platzer and Fred van Lierop of UV Lamp Consulting were kind enough to share their considerable expertise on the subject with us all. The two of them talk through the nuts and bolts of the UV spectrum, it’s applic...

Keeping this one short and sweet this week. Michael and Greg share stories about selling while under quarantine orders. It’s a surprisingly good time to upgrade systems or relamp a facility. Get on the phone and let people know you’re essential and that you can keep the lights on, nevermind any presumptions.

Light Efficient Design's CEO Tim Taylor is our guest today. He talks about starting his company, his current supply chain issues, and his ideas about lobbying the US Congress for lighting infrastructure projects as a form of economic stimulus.

Sociobioligist, futurist, and author of The Watchman's Rattle and On The Verge, Rebecca Costa is here to help us take a big step back to view the pandemic's effects on not just our jobs, but society. She and Michael delve into questions of leadership, confidence and shared morals as we get through this crisis and prepare for the next.

38 years ago, Steve Byrne started working in the warehouse of American Light. After a name change and a few promotions he’s the COO of Facility Solutions Group. He invited us to his offices to share his experiences and insights into the industry. He’s seen a number of disruptions and new learning curves emerge but believes we may be seeing a reconstruction of the distribution channel that puts par...

Jon Sayah came prepared for this one. We spoke about the reduction in the scope of short-term planning, the new shift schedules at Saylite's production facilities, and boxing metaphors.

Mark Verheyen; President of Panasonic Lighting Americas, President and CEO of Universal Lighting Technologies, as well as President and CEO of Douglas Lighting Controls is our guest for this installment of our leadership under Covid-19 pandemic to discuss his particular circumstance of manufacturing in Mexico with a mix of international components and working to keep staff safe.

Jonathan Palmersten, CEO of Gripple shares his experiences in local manufacturing, revenue loss in an employee-owned company, and hanging plexiglass barriers for food service and grocery staff.

Peter Brown joins in on a roundtable discussion of best, worst and likely short-term scenarios as governmental response to this pandemic escalate.

Frank Guastella, Director of Operations at Revco Lighting invited us into his showroom to talk about working with residential clients. He gets an interesting mix of homeowners and contractors walking through his showroom every day. And what we learned is that while his target market is different from our commercial clients, he’s still dealing with the same questions of rebates, purpose-built fixtu...

Margaret Wong, Founder and CEO of McWong International has more experience working with Chinese manufacturers than anyone else, this series wouldn’t be complete without her take on this situation. She shares her insights into the current state of the supply chain and how this might change the IoT.

Ira Greenberg, CEO of Keystone Technologies joins our series of industry leaders as they respond to the corona virus outbreak and its effects on manufacturing and distribution. Beyond his work with Keystone's Virus Task Force he shares his thoughts on corporate bailouts and the strengths of family-owned businesses. Brought to you by The National Association of Innovative Lighting Distributors: vis...

This series of special releases is about profiling the leadership that is emerging in the face of this pandemic. In this episode the King of lighting and CEO of TCP, Ellis Yan rejoins us to share his experiences and thoughts from when it began to affect his business at the end of January through to today. Brought to you by The National Association of Innovative Lighting Distributors: visit NAILD.o...

A Special Release from Get a Grip on Lighting, we'll be sharing our thoughts on how COVID-19 is affecting our industry as the situation develops. Today, we grabbed Fulham's Antony Corrie for his perspective on working in the current situation. Brought to you by The National Association of Innovative Lighting Distributors: visit NAILD.org

A Special Release from Get a Grip on Lighting, we'll be sharing our thoughts on how COVID-19 is affecting our industry as the situation develops. Today, we're talking about where lighting distributors fit into the 'essential services' label.