Get A Grip On Lighting Podcast

53 years in the game and Bill Attardi is as feisty as ever. As a Renaissance man his career is as full as it is diverse; salesman, manager, executive, owner, consultant and teacher. You bet we grappled with him.

Dr. Paul Rudy is the co-founder of SLD Laser along with Dr. Shuji Nakamura. They are commercializing a new generation of laser light sources for display, automotive and specialty applications; filling in the gaps left by the limitations of LED. What? LED has limitations? You bet, time to press play!

Cory Schneider is the current President of NAILD and the CEO of Lighting Unlimited in Arizona. He has developed a unique way to deploy LS1 that a lot of other NAILD members are copying. If you have some lighting people to train we suggest giving this episode a listen.

Dr. Dee Denteneer is the Secretary General of the Zhaga Consortium. Zhaga is an open, global, lighting-industry consortium that is standardizing LED light engines and associated components, including modules and drivers. The end goal of the Consortium is to turn global chaos in order. Fat chance or worth a shot?

David Nathaniel is the CEO of Standard; started out selling electrical tape with his dad from their home in Montreal. 37 years later he has the largest privately owned lighting manufacturing company in Canada. His business has drastically changed in the last five years and the hosts of this show were glad he took the time to tell us about the transition.

Paul Hafner is the creator of NAILD’s education programs: LS1 and LS2. He was instrumental in the transformation of the association from a club to an educational organization. A legend in NAILD circles, many of the members have Paul to thank for their success but especially the hosts of this show.

Randy Johnson is the President of US Lamp in Green Bay Wisconsin. Randy is an LC (Lighting Certified) and a State Licensed Designer of Engineering Systems. Sounds complicated so just think of him as the ultimate lighting guru and you should be good to go for this one.

Dan Ryan is not really a lighting guy. He has worked in the industry but he rolls more with the Silicon Valley crowd. He founded ByteLight in 2011 and flipped it to Acuity Brands where he stayed on as a VP of Product Development. On this episode we talked about IoT, Smart Lighting, LiFi, Indoor Positioning and, well, the Matrix. Dan is currently the Co-Founder & CEO of VergeSense

Get a Grip on Lighting rolled into Frankfurt looking for answers and the editor of the Edison Report was happy to oblige. We set up our gear at his booth, cracked a few beers and pushed record. Manufacturer's warranties, Lumens as a Service, the future of lighting and more. Push play Hombre.

Daniel Audette is a tax engineer. Do we need to say more than that? The hosts of the show thought all you needed was an accountant until they ran into Dan. Check out this episode to find out more about the deductions and incentives available to help Lighting Distributors and Contractors sell their projects.

Andrew Myers, CEO of ProGrowTech, is confident that LED technology is ready to revolutionize the Horticultural Lighting landscape. He laid out his argument on the Get A Grip on Lighting Podcast. Andrew is convinced that all lighting professionals should find a way into the market that is set to “grow” exponentially.

Ira Greenberg, CEO of Keystone Technologies, and his VP of the Distributor Channel Josh Brown joined the Get a Grip on Lighting Podcast to discuss the evolving and capricious nature of the lighting industry. While many manufacturers seem ready to pack it in, Keystone is growing and flourishing and the Hosts needed to know why.

Tom Butters, LC MIES, is the Director of Education for the IES. He is responsible for developing and delivering lighting education to the IES membership and the public at large in a multitude of modern modalities. Prior to his appointment at the IES, Tom was the Director of Canlyte/Philips Lighting Concept Centre in Toronto from 1999 to 2016. He is the immediate Past President of the IES Toronto S...

Mariana G. Figueiro, Ph. D., is the Director of the Lighting Research Center (LRC) and Professor of Architecture at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She has also served as Light and Health Program Director at the LRC since 1999. Dr. Figueiro is well known for her research on the effects of light on human health, circadian photobiology, and lighting for older adults. Her research is regularly feat...

Greg Yeutter is an "up and comer" in the lighting business. On this episode he shared his thoughts on the health effects of artificial lighting.

Dave Inman's expertise is in the horticultural lighting sector. On our show he talked about LED luminaires designed for growing cannabis and why this market is set to explode. He also hosts his own podcast "State of Cannabis".

Wendell Strong is a three decade veteran of the Commercial Lighting Industry and serves as the PoE (Power over Ethernet) Manager at GENISYS Lighting. He has served on the executive board of the National Association of Innovative Lighting Distributors.

Jason Bader is back on Episode 12 of the Get A Grip On Lighting Podcast. He is the President of the Distribution Team and a subject matter expert in the field of inventory management.

Jim Benya is flat out one the world’s top authorities on lighting design and applied illuminating engineering. He is especially known for his work in the field of design with a hardcore emphasis on daylighting, lighting efficiency and sustainable design. We caught up with him at the DLC’s gig back this summer in Portland.

The Godfather of the Lighting business, William M. Brown, is the guest on Episode 10 of the show. His story transcends lighting into the realm of classic American success story. His adventure starts in the 1950's and works its way through several industry transformations. Nevermind LED or CFL - Mr. Brown went through the original linear fluorescent lighting disruption! It was a real honor for us t...

Dr. Arnold J. Wilkins is Professor Emeritus at the University of Essex in the United Kingdom. he has spent an academic career studying the environmental causes of visual eye strain, proving through research that the temporal modulation (a fancy tech term for flickering) of magnetically ballasted fluorescent lamps was causational, not correlated to certain negative human health outcomes including h...

The Get A Grip on Lighting Podcast is joined by special guest Christina Halfpenny, Executive Director of the DesignLights Consortium (DLC). Tina has been leading the team at the DLC since 2015. We discuss the evolution and power of the DLC, LED lighting, lighting controls, DLC 5.0, the influence of lighting distributors, and more!

The Get A Grip On Lighting Podcast is joined by Randy Reid, Editor of the Edison Report. We discuss Randy's extensive experience as Former President of the IES, VP of Resilient Lighting, Board Member of Lightfair, and of course the mystery man behind the Edison Report. We go into some great topics including why attend Lightfair, the current state of the IES, role of the DLC and UL, the importance...

Recorded at Lightfair in the NAILD booth, the Get A Grip on Lighting Podcast is joined by Robin Watt, President of NAILD and Brady Nemeth of the DesignLights Consortium. We speak about DLC 4.0, the future of lighting, color temperature, new tech at Lightfair, horticulture lighting, and much more. Listen to our first podcast recorded straight from the Lightfair floor and our first one with two spec...

Lighting Heavyweight and IES Industry Relations Manager Mark Lien visits with the hosts of the Get A Grip on Lighting Podcast. The discussion worked its way from Quality vs. Efficiency, lighting as a service LaaS, DesignLights Consortium, US Green Buildings Council, the outlook for the IES, the future of the lighting business and more. Enjoy!