Get A Grip On Lighting Podcast

Billy talks to us from his car (don’t worry, he’s not driving) which is apropos as he is moving on in his career. Billy is winding down his agency, Digital Filaments. He considered driving a bus - nothing was off the table - but he is far too valuable in this business to be anywhere else. He’s going to continue to head up AAILA, and if you’re in the Philly area, you’ll still see him around. Intere...

Check out episode 246 from March of 2022. Forest and Zach were on the verge of launching Parspec. Well now they’ve been at it for a year-and-a-half and it sounds like it’s going pretty well. With AI, customer feedback and a host of talented employees, Parspec is ready to provide you better access to data and to make your product search faster and easier. They’re dangerously good at this and they’r...

Mike Johnson and the International Living Future Institute (ILFI) is here to define what “good” looks like in the world, as far as the built environment goes. ILFI has a Living Product Certification which requires independent scientific validation that a product has left the world in better condition than had it not been made - a net positive effect. And ILFI lists more than 50 products so far. Li...

Something a little different on Get A Grip On Lighting. Frank brings us some fascinating episodes in history related to light, everything from the origins of the traffic light, to the invention of the Lite Brite toy. Did you know the first President to have electric lights in the White House was afraid to touch the switches? There is much more like this in Frank’s incredibly interesting blog, Radi...

Katherine and Carrie sat down with Michael and Greg at The Archlight Summit to dive into the history and future of color. You’ll learn some really fascinating facts about color. The word ‘blue” is not mentioned once in Homer’s “The Odyssey.” Did they see blue at the time? Or did they not know how to describe it? Before trade routes opened up, people in some parts of the world never saw certain col...

Rachel and Jessica from Stantec dropped by to chat with Michael and Greg at the Archlight/NAILD Convention, to talk about the challenges of lighting in the work environment. Rachel and Jessica have to take into account efficiency, safety, mental health, circadian rhythm and the quality of the lighted environment. All that while working within the customer’s budget. Rachel Fitzgerald is a senior li...

Special Episode! Another successful NAILD Convention has come and gone. Michael and Greg look back at the informative presentations from experts such as Bernie Erickson, Mark Jewell and Adam Lillien. If you weren’t there, you missed the Dallas Cowboys stadium private group tour, panel discussions, education, camaraderie, and the NAILD vibe. The dates for next year’s convention aren’t set yet, so k...

LED’s do burn out. With presence in 16 cities, there’s a good chance Rob Jensen and Voss lighting will be able to help you out. Rob started at Voss in 1985 and in 2017, they made him President. Rob sees the first generation of LEDs burning out and, as he tells Michael and Greg, there is a LOT of fixture replacement business out there. Sidebar: Did you know that BR did not originally stand for Bulg...

Jill sat down with Michael and Greg at the Archlight Summit to talk about the IALD Education Trust. Jill and the IALD are sharing their lighting knowledge with educators and students for the purpose of promoting the study of architectural lighting design. Understanding legacy lighting is important too, though these young bucks today might not fully grasp it, having never lived through it.  Jill is...

Nathalie has questioned a lot! Everything from the term “Lighting Designer” (she prefers the title “Phototect”), to what color lights to use to light different skin tones. Nathalie started the not-for-profit, Light Reach, a solar lighting initiative to help light disaster areas and underserved communities worldwide. Being the founder of a think tank on light, she shares some different perspectives...

Oh boy. Here comes another curve ball for the industry. LEDs came along in the early 2000’s. They emitted light. They were energy efficient. What could be bad? Ask Mark Baker who’s highly sensitive to certain LED lights. And there are people worse off than him who cannot neurologically tolerate the type of radiation emitted by LEDs. Imagine if you couldn’t go to a store or walk under street lights...

Idiotic. Stupid. Disastrous. A debacle. We’re talking about the recent light bulb ban of course. Hey DOE, take a walk with Michael or Greg and see how this negatively impacts countless businesses and institutions on the ground.

It was always looming, and now the day has finally arrived. You can’t sell any more incandescent lamps (with VERY few exceptions). Is it going to bring down energy consumption? Is it going to create a lot of waste? Is it going to be a problem in some businesses? In this episode, Chris Siegal from Satco addresses these and many more questions and concerns. Chris is the 4th generation in the lightin...

After 300 episodes, you think you’ve heard it all, then Dr. Moore-Ede comes along with some more fascinating facts about circadian lighting. Did you know that you can whiten-up light by substituting violet for blue light while avoiding triggering the circadian system? Also, Dr. Moore-Ede tells Michael and Greg that perhaps 40% of adults sleep with the lights on. Don’t do that! For over 40 years, D...

Katia joins us from Athens Greece, but it was in a London museum where she spotted some terrible lighting. You’d think that good lighting would be a top priority in a museum. That’s when she came up with “The Lighting Police.” There are “police” contributing from all over the world. Check it out. Maybe you can become an officer. Katia is an award-winning lighting designer, communication strategist...

When Robert White started in the business, he had a mullet, earrings, and a jacket with a diagonal zipper that started at the shoulder. In other words, he’s been around a while. So he brings a lot of knowledge from the world of lighting design. He even knows enough to offer some insight to us lighting distributors. Wait till you hear his fantastic idea for lighting a building to avoid uplight. Rob...

Neil Peterson is CEO of LED Lighting Supply where they sell - you guessed it - LED lighting. But they don’t sell to just anyone. LED Lighting Supply excel’s at commercial, industrial and sports lighting. And the market is booming. Neil prefers to stay in that lane and remain really good at it.  Neil has over a decade of lighting experience spanning lighting and pole product strategy, layout design...

Obtaining government contracts can be a challenging endeavor as the competition is fierce. However, a business partnership that includes a disabled veteran can provide your company with a valuable advantage. By doing so, this fulfills a requirement that government contracts often seek, while also offering a disabled veteran the opportunity to be a business owner. This arrangement creates a win-win...

You run a city. You need to know where all your street lights are. You want to know where the car, bike and pedestrian collisions areas are, what time of night they happen. And you need it tomorrow. Call Nick and Evari GIS will take that data and improve your safety record, reduce light pollution and enhance your energy savings. Nick Mesler, PE is the Director of Operations with Evari GIS Consulti...

Brad does not work for a designer or manufacturer, so he considers himself “off the leash,” so buckle up: He thinks we’re in a race to the bottom in cost and quality. With the move to manufacturing in China, all the R & D money is gone. Sustainability is nearly non-existent. The industry is in a dark place. But despair not! Brad has some ideas to get us back on track. Brad Koerner has held a 2...

David, a lawyer, might know more about gallium nitride and LED light bulbs than you do. He survived - and thrived - through the LED “patent wars” of the early 2000’s. David tells Michael and Greg about patent suits involving the Nobel Prize Winner Shuji Nakamura, Cree Inc., and Nichia Corporation. Listen to this episode to find out who won. If you’re involved in a patent dispute, you DO NOT want D...

ALERT! ALERT! If you’re a middle class salaried or hourly wage earner, you’re going to keep earning less and less when you factor in cost of living inflation. But despair not! Michael and Greg have the answers. Maybe.  You’ll have to listen to find out.

After studying Renaissance Design in Italy, Architecture in Buffalo, and Communication Design in New York, Adam landed a job in… wait for it… cancer research! Eventually, via a series of career changes, he ended up at UL and finally, on the Get A Grip On Lighting Podcast. Adam schools us on the latest research in circadian lighting. Are Michael and Greg finally convinced about the merits of circad...

With the kinds of customers Tim serves, good lighting can be a matter of life and death. Mines, factories, steel mills - all require lighting that isn’t going to melt, start a fire or blow up! Tim and his company, Dialight, keep sustainability at the forefront of their mission while helping customers achieve their environmental and safety goals. Tim does have one frequent customer complaint though...

“Leave the earth better than how we found it.” That’s Melissa’s definition of sustainable. Of course she agrees that it is more complicated than that when it comes to the lighting industry. Luckily Brian Huff the chairman of NAILD's Distributor Committee for Sustainable Lighting joins us to add some flavor. Listen to this episode as we solve all the problems. Almost. Melissa divides her time betwe...