Episode Transcript
[00:00:26] Speaker A: Everybody, welcome to the Lighting Matters podcast. I'm Avi Moore with morelights.
[00:00:31] Speaker B: And I'm Lisa Reed with Reed Burkitt Lighting Design. And we've got a guest today.
Sorry to talk over you, Richard, Welcome. Thank you so much.
[00:00:45] Speaker C: It's my distinct pleasure to be here.
[00:00:48] Speaker A: And today our sponsor is Insight Lighting. Man, those guys are the best. You know, Chris always picks up the phone. It's another one of those manufacturers that they'll do just about anything. I've kind of become his de facto Dolly helper because I guess I'm the Dalai Lama these days when it comes to Dolly. But these guys, I mean, they just make really cool stuff and it's like a tank and it works really well.
[00:01:13] Speaker B: Yeah, I've, I've known them a long time and I've really, I feel like, in a way, kind of grown up in the industry with them. And I love what they've done with, with LEDs and with color, and they're just, they've been cutting edge and they've learned a lot because of that, and they've really been out in front with LEDs and with color.
[00:01:35] Speaker A: Richard, have you had experience with Insight?
[00:01:37] Speaker C: Yes, I have in the past. No complaints.
[00:01:44] Speaker A: Yeah. I can't believe they still have the sonic. The tubes. Right. The TIR stuff, which is now Insight. And we were actually working on a project that we were going to upgrade some thousand watt metal halide to, I believe it was 200 watt led illuminators. I don't think that project's happening anymore. But, you know, they were like, oh, yeah, no worries, we can make that work. Let's try it. No big deal.
[00:02:10] Speaker C: One of those many challenges that we get.
[00:02:13] Speaker A: Right.
[00:02:14] Speaker B: Yeah. And that's, that's who we're looking for, right, Richard, are people who find a way to say yes and make it happen. We love that.
[00:02:22] Speaker C: Well, I don't know. I can tell you an old story from years, years ago when I was running a little company called Divine Lighting, and they wanted this massive sign built. And it was like, we can't let the designer down.
You have to say yes. So I said, okay, well, I'm just going to quadruple the price. Nobody will ever buy it. I just don't want to make this thing. Well, of course, somebody did buy it from me, and it was an absolute monster. Then I had to figure out how to take it apart to even ship it. So I learned long, long ago, if you don't want to do something, don't let anybody talk you into it.
[00:03:08] Speaker B: That's pretty good advice. So I love asking people. Richard, before we get into these stories, how did you get into the lighting industry?
[00:03:17] Speaker C: I started as a trainee with the mighty General Electric Company of England in Wembley, England. I think in that office there were five or six thousand people. So I went through the whole gambit from domestic appliances to turbo engines, and I did the whole thing. And then after two years training, they allowed you to pick a division that you would like to go to. And I somewhat embarrassingly say that domestic appliance division seemed great because the showroom certainly had some very attractive young ladies working there. And I couldn't imagine a better environment to be working in. And they came to me and said, well, no room left. I think others had the same idea, but we do have lamps and lighting. While he for sure didn't want to go there because my father was running the overseas division of that company and was a board director. And I couldn't imagine anything worse than working under him at that time because I grew up in a very strict, proper English environment, if you would say so. I said, no, I don't think so. But anyhow, I was persuaded to join and I joined the lamp division. Well, the lamp division had the rights to a company named, called Osram. So the lighting division of the English company worked under Osram Lighting for all of the Commonwealth countries because they had the right to that, but they didn't have the GmbH right in any other part of the world. Rest of the world was GC lamps and lighting. That's how I started and I worked for them in Europe. Then I was transferred to Canada, then I was transferred to Chicago and then I was recalled. But I just didn't want to go back. I mean, I loved the American way of life. I just loved it. And so the first job that I had there, as Avi now knows, was with halo lighting. So I started with Halo lighting for six or seven years back in the old Rosemont plant. And I was the only that was all direct sales. Of course, in those days no reps were used. And I started off as the only specification, say architectural lighting sales specification. I think they barely got that on the business card. And I was the only person in the entire company that called on specifiers and I was off and running. And from there I left and worked for a couple of companies. I went down to Kansas City, worked for Divine Lighting, ended up running that company, left, came back to Chicago, that was then absorbed by Hubble and gobbled up, thrown out, as they say. And I dabbled In a bit of a lighting consultancy. Nothing like you. Fine people get involved in a warehouse here, a parking lot there. Nothing too imaginative. Then as a temporary thing. Oh, then I ran a little company called Scandal Lighting which was all, guess what? Imported Scandinavian lighting did quite well with that. And then I took on one too many partners. Hope they're not listening. But anyhow, took on one too many partners and left.
And as a temporary move, I went to work for Steiner Electric, a distributor here in chicagoland and stayed 20 odd years there and eventually went back into manufacturing where I am now with Lubers International, which is. I've known the company and the ownership and the brothers for a long, long time. And I'm very, very happy to be back in manufacturing. So that's a very quick synopsis, but I've been around.
[00:07:07] Speaker B: No, that was great.
[00:07:07] Speaker C: By the way, Lisa, I just have to share this with you. So last year it was nice to be recognized at the IES national right here in Chicagoland for my 55 years with the IES and Randy Reed happened to snap a picture of me. And I've got it right here and it hangs in my office. And I don't know if you can see this, but can you see who's. Where's the other side? Can you see who's sitting behind me?
[00:07:35] Speaker A: Oh, hey, look at that.
[00:07:37] Speaker B: Is that me?
[00:07:39] Speaker C: That's you, yes.
So thank you very much for the bravo.
[00:07:46] Speaker B: Yeah, that's very funny. You have a picture of me on your wall. That's sort of weird.
[00:07:51] Speaker C: And my wife works here too, so that's a little explaining to do. But that's. That's pretty tough actually.
You know, we commute to work and she's HR here, so it's a terrible thing. I have to behave at home and at work. So.
[00:08:10] Speaker B: Yeah, that's good. I don't envy her job.
You said a couple of things I wanted to ask about, I guess. Comment on first. Isn't that so often how it happens? You went to a job that was supposed to be temporary and stayed for 20 plus years. I feel like that happens a lot. That's kind of funny. I'm kind of curious. I don't know if I should go here, but you mentioned working for Halo.
Okay. You mentioned working for Halo before. Before reps. So were there reps and Halo just didn't have reps or. Tell me more about that.
[00:08:48] Speaker C: They didn't have any reps at all. It was all direct factory sales and like in Chicago land here. Abby, I think. I think we had like Eight. Eight odd direct salesmen hitting the streets every day. And of course with Halo in those days, it was, it was all about, you know, stocking distributors. That's. That's the whole thing was about that.
[00:09:07] Speaker A: Yeah, it was probably pretty much the home builders, right, needing cans, right, Going to their suppliers and saying, hey, I need 50 cans for this living room today, so give me 50 H6s and call it a day.
[00:09:23] Speaker C: And Bob Fremont was the chap that was running the company that had the federal can that takes, I think, massive four trims at that time. I mean, it was unheard of. I mean, every time you bought a housing, you had to have a dedicated trim to it. But now he came up with this wonderful idea. You only need one housing for several trims. I mean, it was a huge deal. A huge deal.
[00:09:46] Speaker B: Brilliant.
[00:09:47] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:09:48] Speaker C: And they lived with that. And then actually Halo, if anybody didn't know it, they condominium, well, not condominiums, apartments was a really big deal. So they actually bought a decorative lighting company called Light Trend. And in the showroom on one side was all these chandeliers and everything. I hated selling those things. But anyhow, that's what it was. It was incredible.
[00:10:11] Speaker B: Why did you hate selling them? Was.
[00:10:13] Speaker C: It's like, it's so personal, you know, I look at something that's the horriblest thing I ever saw in my life and it turns out to be a bestseller. So what do I know? You know, I can't just detract myself from my personal thoughts to the objective architectural look, I guess, is what I'm trying to say. So I'll never be an interior designer.
[00:10:34] Speaker B: No accounting for taste.
[00:10:36] Speaker C: No.
[00:10:37] Speaker A: Well, and it really, you know, when you get into decorative, it's so much in the eyes of the beholder.
[00:10:43] Speaker C: Right, exactly.
[00:10:44] Speaker A: So, Richard, you know, for us, for the podcast, right, it's very much about lighting matters. And I'm sure that in your time, you know, between all the different products that you worked with and being working distributorship and now back in manufacturing, right. That connection to how much lighting matters, how. How do you see that? How do you see that going forward, whether that's your experience with lighting designers or owners, I'm sure you have a couple of good stories to expand.
[00:11:15] Speaker C: Well, I think it's. As long as you know me, you know, that I was. I think that I had a bit of a unique role somewhat in distribution because I worked a lot with lighting designers, excluding yourself, of course, because I was trying to get to ownership for them to understand what they were getting. And I Think that when you come back to lighting matters and lighting designers matter, and I think one of the reasons for that is, is that you understand the product. And what concerns me most in lighting today is that not necessarily the end user in normal circumstances know what they're getting, because we're not, I'm speaking generally now, we're not selling the product, you know, first out of the box, how much does it cost? And a lot of people know me, for years I would have said, I have no idea. I don't know. The cost doesn't matter me, the thing I'm trying to sell is what it is and what it does and how does it last and how does it function and oh, by the way, how do you maintain it? These are all things that I want to tell you about. And hopefully when I tell you these things, you'll understand that that's the true value that I'm giving you. I mean, in the good old days, and I say that a lot, so I have to stop saying that. But in the good old days, you know, I remember when it was one spec name, that was it. That was the name specified and that was it. Then, of course, we had the three name spec, and then it became all equal. I don't understand what equal means. You could say all simmer if you want, but it's not equal. There's no equal. Everyone has its own little different traits of what it does and what it doesn't do. And so we get away from that because others in the chain, and Avi loves to talk about the chain of ownership, of costing products out is something gets lost, as they would say in one terms, in translation somewhere, because you got to take more money out of it. You got to. I mean, the guy is importing this special stone floor from Italy and now he's worried that somebody's got a lighting fixture that's 25 cents less than yours and he doesn't really care what he does or doesn't do. So where do you get to the point that you can explain that? And that, I think, is the frustration of all of us, that we're not allowed to really present our goods in a fit and proper manner. And it's very discouraging sometimes. And you look at some people that have in the past demanded that they want to buy this given product from me. And I'm saying, I'm saying, why would you want to spend that kind of money for that? It doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make any sense at all. But on the Other hand, this product with the finish, forget the performance, look at the finish on this product. People always joke at me that I'm hugging fixtures, you know, And I said, well, I do, because it feels so good. And, you know, it's a beautiful piece of workmanship that's done.
[00:14:17] Speaker B: I think that that kind of passion for what, what the product is and the nuance between products is really something that distinguishes lighting people from the other participants in a building project. Right. I'm not even going to say it's right or wrong, but there are other values and other priorities that come into play. And seems like right now those other voices that are worried about the price of the project are more convincing. They're louder. I don't know, like, is this pendulum swing? Is it going to swing back to, hey, design really matters. The characteristics of the product are more important to me than the 25 cents that I'm going to save. I don't know. That's just something I've been thinking about a lot. You know, it's not that the contractors don't care about the project. They care. They care about what it costs and getting it done on time. They just don't care about the lighting quality the way we do.
[00:15:15] Speaker C: Well, what's muddied the waters is that competition is good. Of course, we all need competition to keep us straight, if you want to phrase it that way. But competition hasn't just quadrupled. It's 100 crupled because of LEDs. And that's the sad part of life, is that you can get into the lighting business today in five minutes because there's so many opportunities offshore. Now, don't get me wrong, you can't survive in the lighting industry without sourcing something in part or whole, from China, just Vietnam or wherever. It's just the way it is. You know, we in my company pride ourselves that right here in Chicagoland, we make a lot of products that are labeled Made in America, and we're very proud of that. But could I do that exclusively? No, I couldn't. Can Acuity can? I probably shouldn't be mentioned, but the major four or five do that. No, they can't. It's just the way life is. But the problem is that when I'm trying to compete with somebody, for example, and they say, well, this chap says he's got 10,000 of these products in stock. No, he doesn't. Yes, he does. No, he doesn't. I can tell you the company that does have 10,000 of those in stock, and it doesn't have his name on it, and he's sourcing those products. And, oh, by the way, the guy you're buying from, I just checked out his credentials and he lives in a townhouse in the southern part of Los Angeles. That's who we're all competing with. At the end of the day, that somebody goes and gets a low price from. You have no idea what you're getting. You have no idea the quality of your product. And, you know, Lumen maintenance, that's a joke. Nobody had any idea what you're talking about there. These are the struggles that everybody has day to day trying to deliver a quality product and competing with a quality person. It's tough. And trying to explain why things do the way they do. You know, in the time last few years here and there, I taught lighting classes and stuff like that. But, you know, now, as I'm sure you're coming across, even in your companies, you're dealing with people that have never designed any lighting other than an LED light source. Yep, that blows my mind sometimes when I'm trying to explain to somebody where we were and where we're going, but they have no idea what you were talking about. I saw another podcast about some Mr. 16s. I used to love that light source. We could do all kinds of color red. Oh, it's fantastic, right? Things you could do. I remember going to Taiwan and looking at all of the hotels and these hospitality areas. All they used was Mr. 16s. I was in shock. I thought, where are all the power lamps? And stuff like that? But they were so way ahead there. You know, we're still using power lamps. What was the efficacy of a power lamp? 7% or something. But, you know, we loved them, but we have to understand them, know them. Right.
[00:18:20] Speaker B: So now that everything has shifted, everything has shifted to LEDs, like you said. I think it's interesting. An interesting discussion that came up at the conference we just attended was about maintenance. And LEDs have been around for 10 or 15 years in full force. And all of those designs where people were told, oh, it's never going to fail. It's starting to fail now. And the maintenance issue hasn't been properly or thoroughly addressed yet.
[00:18:52] Speaker A: Right.
[00:18:52] Speaker C: A lot of chip failures. More. More driver failures than chip failures, probably.
[00:18:58] Speaker A: That whole conversation about it's going to last forever. I mean, shame on anybody who said that or buried it in concrete and there's no way to remove it. And you know, Richard, to your point, it's that quality of a product that has the ability to remove an array or remove a driver. That maintenance factor that you don't get to have the conversation with the end person that matters. And so now you have a situation where, yep, you have to rip out the drywall. I remember we have a couple of restaurants here in the Chicagoland area that have been around for 10 plus years. And we have changed boards. We actually started our own maintenance department to help this restaurateur manage getting circuit boards and getting drivers and reprogramming lighting controls. Because we haven't found an electrician or maintenance company anywhere in the Chicagoland area that is up to speed with what's available.
But I remember having the conversation about this and then talking to somebody about drivers inside a down lights. I mean, how many times have you seen the driver? Right? You have the. The junction box here, the opening for the downlight is here, but the driver's on this side.
[00:20:18] Speaker C: Right.
[00:20:19] Speaker A: And you know what? That fixture, half of the time is that $0.25, $0.30 cheaper? I mean, I don't know how you're going to do that. Like, I can't even get to that clip right there. And look, my arm already for those just listening to is like, you can't get around to it. So maybe the maintenance side of it is the place that we can all win. I don't know. I. It's a constant struggle.
[00:20:48] Speaker C: Well, it reminds me years ago when I with Divine Lighting and I'm looking at a redesign of a cutoff fixture. And I'm looking how they put the ballast in the fixture. And I'm saying, oh boy, that seems a little complicated to me. And they wanted me to sign off on the design. I said, no, hold on. And like three months went by and they said, you're going to sign off on this design? I said, hold on, do it next month. That's December. It's getting pretty cold. I said, yeah, I understand. So I had them going in. We had sample poles in the back. I had them go in Mount 1. You know where I'm going, Abby? And I went to the design engineer. I said, do me a favor. I've got a truck out there with the ladder. I want you to go and change the ballast for me. Me? I said, yes, you. I want you to go and change it for me, you know. And two hours later he came back very frozen and very miserable. I said, yeah, we'll never sell another one if that's the design we go with. You've got to think about that. That's like even in our company, our ownership, they make Everything before it goes out. You've got to understand how the fixture goes together. You've got to be in the business long enough to. I understand. You all have to start somewhere. I mean, when I was in distribution, I would get somebody I'd never heard of every week trying to sell us something that was, you know, this cost you. You can't believe. You've got to buy it and, you know, they've got a 10 year warranty and they've been in business one year. I mean, how can you give any credence to that? I mean, you just can't.
[00:22:20] Speaker B: No, Right.
[00:22:22] Speaker A: We would always ask those manufacturers. Show me the bank account that has all the funds available to cover the products. You want us to, you know, specify on this job 100%. Right. If 100% failed, you have to have 100% of that in a. In an account somewhere so you could defend it. And every single time it's like, well, why would. We knew that. I was like, cool, thanks. It's been a pleasure.
[00:22:49] Speaker C: Yeah, it's a problem, you know, but yeah, we have all these war stories, but I think that they're good war stories because it helps you be better people. It helps you to be more discerning. And I think, you know, as a shout out for lighting designers that I've worked with over the years, you understand the product, you've delved into the product because that's your name on the product and the project and so you'll ever be, ever be remembered for that project. So I think that in your makeup, you delve, as I say, deeper into the product to make sure you're getting the right thing. So that's one of the kudo things, I think, for needing a lighting design. I don't have to pitch for you guys, but I think that that's where it's all about. These guys have done their homework and due diligence and know what it's all about. I know, because you've poured over products.
[00:23:44] Speaker B: Enough, you can keep pitching for us. This sounds good. Keep going.
[00:23:51] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, in your experience, right, would you agree that the lighting designers you work with are extremely passionate about the products that they're selecting, but they're passionate about it because of their passion. It has nothing to do with their pocketbook. Correct. I mean, I'm sure you've seen that.
[00:24:11] Speaker C: A lot, but it's. Without being too dramatic. It's like a painting, isn't it? This is what you're creating. You're creating something. You're creating this Effect that's going to be around for a long time and you want people to go in and say, wow, this is something else, you know, takes your breath away for whatever reason. I mean, you look at, you know, the awards that yourselves have received and they just blow me away. Some of the creativity that's gone into these lighting designs, you know, they didn't just happen. There was creativity there. And you know, particularly with controls now, you know, that's what it's all about, right? Controls, controls, controls. So this is what you can do and change spaces and everything. I mean, it's just fantastic. I mean I'm very commercial industrial type lighting now. I do a little bit of decorative stuff that's come in now. I'll talk to you about that one of these days. So that's nice to have. But you know, trying to also make a product that, I mean, maintenance, I don't understand. I know in some designs maintenance has never ever been considered not only maintenance of the actual physical product, but maintenance to be able to get to the product, to be able to do something with it. And having to remove, what was it? One product we looked at, I think it was close to 36 little grub screws to get into the fixture. I mean, my God, you'll never even get them back again.
[00:25:36] Speaker A: I think you hit on such an important point that I've never really thought of that. The way you're saying it is so perfect. It's this defending of our art and then when you add maintenance to it, it's making sure that the art that we've created with our partners, architects and interior designers and owners and such, that it carries on for years. I mean, I've been a big proponent of screaming as top as I can, as loud as I can. I want to see a 10 year award. So you go back to a project after 10 years and take another picture. I mean, Lisa and Randy just made an amazing presentation about the many revisions of the St. Louis Arch. And what's amazing is the design concept stayed but the technology updated.
But you know, you talk about, I mean, Lisa, correct me, I'm wrong, like 40 year award, like that's a 40 year award. That's a design that came to fruition. And Lisa and Randy have maintained that design for years and it still works. I mean, it's spectacular.
[00:26:52] Speaker B: Thank you. Yeah, 25, 40 years ago we couldn't be done. But yeah, we showed you the 40 year one. That one didn't look so good.
[00:27:00] Speaker A: Yeah, that wasn't it just.
[00:27:02] Speaker C: And I have been up there. So.
But yeah, I think maintaining, because that's yours. I mean, if I can sort of just steer a little bit to my own company. I mean, we have evolved into LEDs, and we do a lot of LEDs and we sell a lot of LEDs and we do well with it. The company was founded on Louvers, Louvers International. We have now four or five different divisions, but the louvres lens division is still a million plus. It's a multimillion dollar division. You would be amazed what we do with lenses. But here, this goes right down your alley here, because I challenge anybody to challenge us to make a lens that we can't make. It would be incomprehensible to think that we can't hand make a lens. You would not believe what our skilled workers do here. And we continually have people come and say, you know, this project's only five years old and this one of four or five majors. They don't make the fixture anymore, let alone the lens. What are we going to do? It's got your name on it, Abby and Lisa. You've got all these beautiful fixtures in there, and some of the lenses, for some reason or other, crack or they distort it for whatever reason. It's only five years old. People still remember it's your project. Now you need to fix it. How the heck are you going to fix it?
[00:28:25] Speaker A: I mean, I still get the phone calls after five years. Hey, this doesn't work anymore. And like I said, it's why we created this maintenance department, because we get.
[00:28:34] Speaker C: Those calls and we excel a lot in that. And some people. And this is not extruded. That's the problem because all of these lenses were extruded. We make these by hand. And some people have defied to say, I can't tell the difference between the extrusion and what you made by hand. This all comes under maintenance. This all comes under sustaining the project, the product. Because you're delivering a product, at the end of the day, you're delivering a product and you want to maintain it for 40, 50 years.
[00:29:05] Speaker A: Interesting.
[00:29:06] Speaker B: And yeah, we really do. I think about that.
Sometimes an architect is building, designing a building, and that's. That's got a lot longer life than this lighting project. But we still want the lighting to look good many years down the road. And. And maintenance is something that's gotten kind of, I feel like, ignored with all of the focus on LEDs. And like you said, products change, product lines change. You can't. We'll specify something and by the time it gets built, you can't even get it anymore. So. So you make a really good point about being able to have somebody to custom make a lens if you have to. That's.
[00:29:48] Speaker C: Well, what about. You restored a building and you kept the historical lighting, and that's part of the building. And it would be hundreds of thousands, maybe even if you could replicate it. But how do you put a new light source in that and without getting into trouble, you don't put a new light source in it by just screwing a light bulb into it. The little thing called light center length. There's a little thing about light centering, doing it right. What's the right color temperature? And how can you dial that in and do this and do that? So I don't like to talk about. I hate the word retrofitting. You know, to me, it has a negative cheap effect. I like to talk about upgrading. And we do very well upgrading historical fixtures, whether it be indoor or outdoor. And again, this is all part of the maintenance. We all want to sell new fixtures, but maybe that's not the way to go. It's nothing to do with money. It may not be the right way to go. You may be able to fix it the way it is by some new technology. And that is the other problem, too. Keeping up with that technology of today, with the right color temperatures, the right crisis. And we see light levels coming down. We see color temperatures coming down for sure. I mean, in outdoor lighting now is predominantly anywhere between 1900 and 2200 Kelvin. And, you know, we have the capabilities of dialing into any of that that are so required, but we definitely see that. And one needs to be able to adjust to it. So it's all good stuff. Or, you know, the. I mean, Abby has told the story, and I don't want to embellish it on too much, but some people say, what's the historical stuff mean? It doesn't mean anything. You know, we're here today, but I think we need to know where we came from. And it's like Abby, when he came to me and said, you know, I don't want to infer you're old or anything. I think he was a little bit. But he said, I don't want to infer you're that old. But I thought that you might know the answer to this. We've got these. These fixtures in this Lake Geneva. You know, it used to be a Playboy Club. I said, yeah, I knew that. And he said, so we got these fixtures. He said, I think there's less than a foot candle in the lobby. They're terrible fixtures. Try to fix it by screwing a light bulb in. Right, Abby? And I said, yeah, those are Halo 8 inch cans. And he said, how do you know that? I said, I sold it.
No, no, you don't understand. This was back in the 70s. I said, yeah, I sold them.
That was Halo lighting fixture. Halo had all of the Playboy clubs, and that's what we did. And so sometimes historical knowledge is a good thing because you can relate to it and move forward with it and understand what they were trying to do in the first place. But I cringe when people are trying to fix something just by screwing in a different light bulb. That's. That's not good. That's not lighting. It's. I don't know what it is, but it's not lighting.
[00:32:55] Speaker A: Well, it's like those HGTV early HGTV shows where you had the ceiling fans and they were screwing in those pigtail CFLs in the. In the name of energy efficiency. Yeah, I remember back in the day when he used to talk about light quality and dimming more often than I do today. But I was talking about how you create mood in that bedroom. I mean, that's basically impossible, right? If you went to go to the dimmer, it wasn't going to dim. And now you've taken this, I mean, let's just admit this glass lens, ugly light kit on a ceiling fan, and you've stuck something in it that looks even worse, and it's just glaringly bright in this bedroom. I mean, I would say that the HGTV is kind of one of our biggest foes when it comes to lighting design, because they don't emphasize it. I mean, you look at what they, what they broadcast. You look at Architectural Record, you know, any of these magazines and things that talk about architecture, it's very much all about daylight or finishes or anything else, and you forget the design aspect of it, Right? And so the, the history goes away and all of those other things go away. And it's, it's all about, hey, doesn't this space look so great? And it's daylight. But how do you, how do you read in there? Right? Like going back to that lobby, that lobby wasn't bright enough for how many years?
[00:34:34] Speaker C: Well, I think when they said they needed a flashlight to look at a credit card to check people in, that was a good indication they had a lighting problem. Oh, my God. Just absolutely insane. But I think we have to remember, too, as you drive lighting levels down, I mean, Back in the day, we would say, nobody's ever going to critique you for over lighting a space, so everybody overlit everything.
So everybody would be happy with all the lighting. Now, as we realize other than the age factor, you know, we just don't need all that amount of light. You know, the lobby light doesn't need to be the same as the hallway lighting. You know, the stairs don't have. You know, we all know the story. We've all been to basic lighting 101, but, you know, you just don't need to floodlight everything and outdoors too. And, you know, I was probably one of the biggest culprits in outdoor lighting because not surprisingly, we would have a lot of outdoor lighting. And, you know, I had it on dust to dawn. Never even thought twice about it. You know, whole places lit up like you could play football in there. And it was crazy. You know, then I, you know, then I stuck it down to, well, maybe I should turn it off. You know, an hour after I go to bed, you know, then I'm saying to myself, well, maybe I really don't need all of that light there. You know, I'd have like 23 different lights on all around, landscaping the pond and the koi and everything like that, you know, well, maybe I don't need to do that because I'm not going to look at it in the next five hours before I go to bed. So trying to be more conscious of things like that, you know, that we all should be, because some of this outdoor lighting, dark sky, and that's a sidebar you and I got to talk about. My company is very involved with their own dark sky scenario, so we have to talk about that. But it's.
Some fixtures out there cannot be dark sky. It's just not going to happen optically. They weigh the.
[00:36:34] Speaker A: We actually have a podcast coming up where we're going to be talking a lot about dark sky and the municipality standards and things like that.
[00:36:43] Speaker C: Yeah, well, that's a big focus of ours, and I probably talk to you afterwards about that one. But yeah, we have a lot of input on that, so look forward to talk to you about it. But yeah, it's interesting. There's different light levels and what you can and cannot do, but dark sky is important and we're trying to address it where we can. But some light fixtures, it's not going to happen. And then the problem is if you make it happen the way they want to happen. Yeah, there's no light going up there. But I tell you what, that's one hell of a glare as you're driving down the street or even walking your pooch. You knock your head up there, and God bless you, there's a massive glare. Glare bombs. Reminds me of the old induction lamp. Lasted 100,000 hours.
Couldn't do anything with it.
[00:37:37] Speaker B: I know we're kind of getting close on time, and I don't want to open a whole can of worms, but I feel like this ties it all together. When you were talking about HGTV and the glare and. And just how lighting is perceived in popular culture, did you all catch Mariah Carey's comments last week?
[00:37:54] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:37:55] Speaker B: She talked about being tortured by overhead lighting. Any thoughts?
[00:38:01] Speaker C: Well, the first thought is, how do you get rid of it? That's the first thought. From my point of view, that's maybe more your problem than mine. So I guess indirect lighting would certainly come into play. Maybe she would like indirect lighting, you know, and we do see a lot more of it.
[00:38:19] Speaker B: I mean, we all like that. We all prefer indirect to, you know, sitting right under something, a spotlight over our heads. I mean, I just think. I think it's very interesting that lighting and lighting design and quality of light and not just fixtures took center stage for a minute in popular culture and talking about it.
[00:38:40] Speaker C: So that's, you know, there's no harm in that. No harm, no foul, as they say. That's. That's good.
[00:38:45] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:38:46] Speaker C: We should all talk about it more, as they say, you know, let everybody else get neck ache like we do. Looking up and looking at stuff.
[00:38:53] Speaker A: Right. Constantly looking up, staring at that. And I would also say moving to a different chair or table so that you're not in that spotlight in a restaurant or conference center as we were recently, like, moving away from that. That. That beam that makes you look extremely unflattering. Yeah.
[00:39:17] Speaker C: By the way, I did. I did catch you on the front row, I think, of that convention. I was thinking, boy, I wish I knew what questions Abby was asking, because I'm sure they were pretty pointed.
[00:39:31] Speaker A: I think I pretty well controlled myself. Well, as those who know me, I can be a little forward. There's only a moment or two that I was maybe not the best avi that I could be, but it was.
[00:39:46] Speaker C: A bit more passionate than normal.
[00:39:48] Speaker B: You were way well behaved.
[00:39:50] Speaker C: Okay, well, thank you. Lisa says that I believe it, but that's all good, you know, because we're. We're getting ex. We're getting excited about something that we believe in because we have the passion in it. And hopefully in most cases, it does that passion translates into the finished design of a product because it was selected in the right manner to do the right job and it will be maintained in a fit and proper manner.
[00:40:19] Speaker B: Oh, I just think that really sums up everything we talked about. That was brilliant.
[00:40:23] Speaker A: It does. I want that 10 year award. I want that 10 year award. Great. What it looked like right after it opened. But what about 10 years ago?
[00:40:31] Speaker C: We would have talked more if it didn't take me 20 minutes to figure out how to connect.
If we ever do this again, I'll go straight to the laptop. That was the trick.
[00:40:41] Speaker A: Yeah, this was really great. And we'll have to have you back for sure as the podcast continues. And as you know, we're just trying to put out there, the word about lighting matters and I think you hit on some really good points today and I really appreciate it.
[00:40:59] Speaker C: Well, thank you for having me.
[00:41:00] Speaker B: Thanks for joining us.
[00:41:02] Speaker C: Thank you.
[00:41:03] Speaker A: This wouldn't be possible without our sponsors and today's sponsor, Insight Lighting is a leading manufacturer of high performance architectural lighting for the energy conscious design market. Designing and manufacturing lighting products in the United states for over 30 years. They currently offer over 19 families of products for a wide variety of architectural applications and Lisa and I were speaking of some of them earlier today. They offer the industry's greatest variety of white color tuning and color changing LED platforms and customize optics for whatever your project may require, whether that's coves, ceilings, facades and even illuminating tubes.
[00:41:50] Speaker B: Insight Lighting's mission is to create unique lighting solutions to today's most challenging lighting design problems like tubes or other challenging problems anyway, by offering quality products, exceptional service truly and flexibility in design. They work every day to shape your experience of light and you can find them at www.insightlighting.com.
