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 everyone so we can all experience “the Milky Way effect.”
Jul 07, 2021•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 232
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.
Jul 05, 2021•40 sec•Ep. 231
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 dollars in prize money, INVENT A BETTER LIGHTING SYSTEM!
Jun 28, 2021•47 min•Ep. 230
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!
Jun 23, 2021•41 min•Ep. 229
Don’t let his young age fool you. Doug is the Vice President of Marketing at Light Efficient Design. Doug, who’s on the Board of NAILD, talks about the need for education in the industry to bring more awareness to the dark sky issue. From prison yards to parks - can we move the needle with best practices, comprehensive ordinances, thorough education, public awareness and a tiered accreditation by application type?
Jun 21, 2021•36 min•Ep. 228
The three brains behind Lightserve, Kevin, Bill, and Jason have grown Lightserve into a 100 million dollar company in just 10 years. You can get some tips from how they treat their employees, contractors and customers. Maybe you can learn a thing or two from their acquisition strategies. These guys are the perfect business storm!
Jun 17, 2021•50 min•Ep. 227
Dr. George Schaaf is a veterinary pathologist working in the Comparative Medicine department at Wake Forest University School of Medicine. Dr. Schaaf studies the effects of light on animals and transfers the learnings to human physiology. You’ll hear about the effects of light and glare on deer, chickens and Syrian hamsters - as well as your beloved pets. He tells us why night matters for animals and about his efforts towards “re-wilding” the environment.
Jun 16, 2021•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 226
Ian Ashdown is a consultant with over forty years’ experience in lighting design, research and development, and software engineering (He built the original version of AGI32). He holds more than 160 patents and patents pending. Listening to Ian, deploying advanced lighting into practical tools and software seems like a side project, something he does for fun! Right now, Ian’s passion is horticultural lighting. If you want to improve the taste of tomatoes, listen to Ian!
Jun 14, 2021•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 225
Dajana is a teaching assistant and PhD student at the Department of Geography, Tourism and Hotel Management at the Faculty of Sciences in Novi Sad, Serbia. She is passionate about preserving the night sky and “bringing back the stars to our kids!”. Hear about her creativity in teaching about the night sky using animals, astro hikes, jazz and shared gratitude. You’ll be inspired.
Jun 11, 2021•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 224
Tony Lawrence is an entrepreneur, technologist, and prophet of quantum possibilities through his current role as CEO of Light Rider. Yeah, you’ve heard physicists on TV talking about the quantum world and thought, “I have no idea what they’re talking about!” Well, review your notes because you are going to be selling this stuff in light bulbs soon. Tony tells you how the light bulbs you will be selling will make computer hacking and ransomware a thing of the past. Intrigued? Listen to this one. ...
Jun 09, 2021•46 min•Ep. 223
Ruth Taylor currently serves as a program manager on the Advanced Lighting Team at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory where she currently manages the Next Generation Lighting Systems (NGLS) Program. Ruth is your first line of defense against crappy products and design. Get an inside look at how products you sell are tested at the PNNL.
Jun 06, 2021•50 min•Ep. 222
Ryan Andreasen is the founder of Night Sky Science (https://nightskyscience.com/). Astrophotography and Night Sky Preservation is Ryan’s main mission along with getting folks to look up at night. In this episode you’ll hear about the wonder of “touching” the Orion Nebula and about how the night sky can induce powerful emotions. When advocating for dark skies, avoiding words like “dark” or “pollution” can help bureaucrats accept the message. You’ll even hear Michael read some T.S. Elliot. This is...
Jun 02, 2021•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 221
Taisha Bezzo is the National Sales Director for Evluma. She’s been with the company since 2014. Taisha has an MBA from Harvard, a pilot’s license, and she does Ironman Triathlons in her spare time. She’s going to tell you about LED’s, controls, and thermal management. Taisha is very smart, so listen up!
Jun 01, 2021•45 min•Ep. 220
Justin Wendt has served as Rohinni’s Chief Technology Officer for over five years where he leads and directs Rohinni’s global teams in Research and Development of next generation die placement equipment and the products the technology is used to create. You won’t believe the mind-blowing technology being created - mini and micro-LED’s that are as small as 30 microns thick. The applications are just beginning to be explored.
May 27, 2021•47 min•Ep. 219
Mark Clipsham - Architect, builder, consultant, master planner. While battling through his allergies, Mark has a thing or two to say about the growth economy, the constant drive for profit and what drives him nuts about the current state of lighting. Mark offers some ideas on sustaining the environment and bringing back the dark skies.
May 26, 2021•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 218
Deborah Burnett, ASID, AASM, is an internationally recognized registered design professional, Subject Matter Expert (SME) in the field of Light + Health, and member of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. Deborah is going to let you in on some fascinating facts about the “spring surge,” proper lighting in horse stalls, the moon’s importance in photosynthesis, the suprachiasmatic nucleus, and how the industry selling lighting for your circadian rhythms has become a racket.
May 19, 2021•1 hr 14 min•Ep. 217
This week we are joined by Kelly Roberts and Laura McDonald Stewart of the advisory board for the ARCHLight Summit at the Dallas Market Center this fall. We discussed the value of cross-professional networking events; there’s value in designers and architects meeting other professionals in this field. As well this year's programming being more broad than just lighting concerns. Of course any in-person event right now has to confront the ongoing pandemic; and we all discussed how the attitudes of...
May 17, 2021•41 min•Ep. 216
Check out Frank’s Night Sky Resource Center (www.nightskyresourcecenter.org) for some awesome astrophotography. Frank advocates seeing the night sky as a resource just like water and air. He tells us about his personal sense of “awe” in seeing the night sky and how you too can lose your self awareness in experiencing the sublime. It’s better than Ayahuasca tea!
May 13, 2021•59 min•Ep. 215
Brian Amundson of Pacific Lamp Wholesale and president-elect of NAILD is with us to discuss his experience working in dark sky lighting projects. As distributors we sell what customers ask for; and even if we wanted to pursue dark sky instals we are not always clear on what really is compliant versus just “friendly.” Brian shares his experience working on coastal projects with turtle- and bird-centric lighting and as well as partnering with a native tribe to fix up a ski hill. From the conversat...
May 12, 2021•31 min•Ep. 214
Steve Perry is the product trainer for the current sales staff at 1000Bulbs and works as liaison officer for its legendary CEO Kim Pedersen which includes among other things, new product lines, marketing strategies and vendor relations. Steve talks about sales strategies and techniques, incandescent lighting, Zoom, Amazon and learning from disagreeable people. If you want to learn, you might as well learn from the biggest. Don’t stop believing! (Sorry Steve!)
May 07, 2021•56 min•Ep. 213
Jim is one of the world’s top authorities on lighting design and applied illuminating engineering. He invented the BUG system that directly affects dark skies. Jim tells us how many birds are killed by the Twin Towers light columns and how vertical light is better than horizontal light. Listen to what happened when Jim joined the board of IES, or when WELL inspectors asked him to close the blinds, or what happened when a cheap metal halide bulb exploded. Don’t mess around with Jim!
May 05, 2021•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 212
If you have crappy sleep or like wearing sunglasses you should probably listen to this. Dr. Rosenthal talks about sleep apnea and electric blue light, hormones and electric blue light, melatonin, proteins, cancer and well, electric blue light...you see where we’re going with this. You need to give this one a listen!
Apr 28, 2021•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 211
Where does it cost $1500 bucks to change a light bulb? Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are one of the most useful chemicals ever invented. Big surprise LED manufacturers make ridiculous claims about lamp life; what else is new. And we talk to Marty about the limits of LED's in hazardous locations along with the challenges of sourcing parts and materials for existing legacy lamps and ballasts which still dominate these applications.
Apr 26, 2021•48 min•Ep. 210
Astrophysicist Alejandro Sánchez de Miguel has been involved in light pollution issues since the mid-1990s and has contributed to over 100 articles, many related to light pollution. He is the leader of “Cities at Night,” a citizen-supported project coordinated with NASA and other space agencies that use ISS night imagery to raise light pollution awareness. Alejandro discusses his personal experiences with light pollution, and his analysis of pictures of cities at night taken from the Internation...
Apr 22, 2021•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 209
From red tape to blue LED’s to Red China. We talk about entrepreneurship in the time of cheap China and Google Ventures. Chuck also touches on environmental problems and how to get the customer to care.
Apr 19, 2021•57 min•Ep. 208
Is LEDucation going forward? It sure is! Craig and Wendy tell us how in this time of Covid. The March virtual show was a success. Now they’re going live in New York in August. Is it 100% a go? As Craig says, “100% unsure!” But you know Craig and Wendy and the rest of the committee will pull it off. How? Listen up!
Apr 12, 2021•38 min•Ep. 207
Harun Mehmedinovic is an astrophotographer, speaker, documentary filmmaker and dark sky advocate. He finds his deepest connections to nature while looking up at night and is doing his best to spread the word and save it for everyone. In our conversation we discussed his status as a ‘hack’ compared with night-time photographers from the scientific community, the pale imitation of daytime we’re creating in our cities, the value of travel, how his work does seem to unify everything, his ideas about...
Apr 08, 2021•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 206
Edward Bartholomew - lighting designer, educator, advocate - is the owner of Bartholomew Lighting in Massachusetts. In this episode we talk about improving student scores, better worker productivity, reducing crime, fixing public utilities and of course, improving profitability - all through better lighting. We might have just solved everything in this episode!
Apr 05, 2021•42 min•Ep. 205
What do GU24s and email marketing have in common? Not much, but this week we have the inventor of the GU24, David Shiller on the line to discuss his current career in marketing and product development. Beyond online engagement, we also delve into policy problems, socketed vs fixed fixtures, DC wiring and where standards need to change.
Mar 29, 2021•52 min•Ep. 204
Our dark sky series has spun off into Starving for Darkness, but that doesn't mean we won’t be checking in with Michael and Jane periodically to discuss what is going on with light pollution concerns. The movement for darker nights has been going on for a long time, but it still feels new in terms of awareness, consumer uptake and habits. We all sell light all day; it's harder to convince anyone that they need less of it, and we need regulators in the DLC and various levels of government to help...
Mar 24, 2021•24 sec•Ep. 203
