The Detroit Section has an active calendar that includes various educational courses as well as multiple opportunities to network and socialize with industry peers. To keep abreast with our upcoming events follow the calendar below.
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CONFERENCE SCOPE
The IES Street & Area Lighting Conference is the only conference of its kind dedicated to improving the outdoor lighting business of electric utilities and energy service companies. We continue to provide an open forum for end-users facing the same questions regarding relevant products for specific application, lighting controls, benchmarks from other users in the lighting community, and milestones reached by municipalities, utilities and DOT’s. We strive to maintain a small community feel, creating a great opportunity to network with industry peers through seminars with speaker Q+A, breakout sessions to discuss issues in-depth, an exhibit hall and many networking events with speakers and peers in a comfortable and open atmosphere.
Despite the disruption we are facing, the IES is excited to bring you the opportunity to participate in the SALC without having to leave your workspace. We will leverage our technology to disseminate valuable, relevant and timely content. We hope you find this virtual conference insightful, beneficial, and of the quality that you have come to expect from the IES.
DATES: October 26 – October 28, 2020
IES MEMBER REGISTRATION: $299*
NON-MEMBER REGISTRATION: $399
* There will be reduced rates for Emerging Professionals (EPs) and Student members
Whose job is it to keep up with information that impacts lighting professionals? Who keeps their fingers on the pulse of our lighting community? The answer is the editors of the websites and publications that inform us about the trends and new technologies shaping our industry. Having collected and disseminated massive content that relates to lighting puts them in a position to see a broader perspective than most of us have the time to develop. It would be valuable to sit down with them and learn how the massive amount of knowledge they report on coalesces into trends that affect us now and will influence our future. You are invited to sit down with…
Webinar participants are eligible for one (1) IES Continuing Education Unit (CEU).
PRESENTERS:
Randy Reid – Editor of Edison Report
Paul Tarricone – Editor of Lighting Design & Application Magazine
Al Uszynski – Editor of Inside.Lighting
Maury Wright – Editor of LEDs Magazine
…and your host, Mark Lien, for a discussion that anticipates the upcoming DOE/IES Workshop scheduled for February 1st-4th. This years Workshop is meeting the moment with timely sessions reflecting the state of our industry and projecting how trends and new technologies will alter our lives. Who better to prepare us for these topics than the people who have been following and reporting on them? Join us to ready yourself for the upcoming workshop or just to hear from these uniquely informed professionals as they discuss how our lighting community is being transformed.
Randy Reid – Editor of Edison Report
Randy Reid has helped shape the lighting market over the past four decades. Reid began his career in 1983 with GE Lighting. He served as President of the Illuminating Engineering Society in 2002-2003. Further, Mr. Reid was a member of the LIGHTFAIR Management Committee, 2001-2003 and served on the LIGHTFAIR Advisory Committee in 2006. Mr. Reid was chairman for the IES Annual Conference in 2010 and received the President’s Award in 2011 and again in 2020. Reid is the owner of LumEfficient, a heavy industrial lighting company. In 2018, LumEfficient, received a LIGHTFAIR Innovation Award as well as a Progress Report Award from the Illuminating Engineering Society. In February of 2019, Reid was appointed the Executive Director of the National Lighting Bureau—a non-profit organization dedicated to high benefit lighting. In 2020, Reid launched a new digital magazine called designing lighting, which is a new voice for the lighting design community. Mr. Reid is a retired Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve and was mobilized during Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2002, where he worked in the Surgeon’s office at the U.S. Army Reserve Headquarters. He holds a Bachelor of Science from University of Alabama and an M.B.A. from the University of Tennessee.
Paul Tarricone – Editor of Lighting Design & Application Magazine
Paul Tarricone has more than two decades of experience in association and business-to-business publishing, specializing in the engineering, design, construction and facilities management markets. Mr. Tarricone currently serves as Editor and Publisher of Lighting Design + Application, the official magazine of the Illuminating Engineering Society. The magazine has won a number of EXCEL, Association Trends and TABBIE awards for editorial excellence and design. He has also presented at a number of association publishing events in both Washington D.C. and New York.
Al Uszynski – Editor of Inside.Lighting
Al Uszynski is an accomplished executive with over 25 years of lighting industry experience. He is the Principal of inside.lighting, an online media company that provides valuable resources to lighting industry professionals. Additionally, Al provides strategy consulting and serves in advisory roles for select clients.
Al has held management roles with leading lighting companies including CEO of Traxon Technologies, a division of Osram; Area Vice President for Cooper Lighting; and National Sales Manager for Hubbell Lighting. Al also served as an Adjunct Professor at Drexel University, instructing courses on Professional Selling and Public Speaking. A recipient of an Alumni Award for Meritorious Service from the Villanova University College of Engineering, Al mentors college students in applying engineering degrees to non-traditional technical career paths.
Maury Wright – editor of LEDs Magazine
Maury Wright is an electronics engineer turned technology journalist, who has focused specifically on the LED & Lighting industry for the past decade. Wright first wrote for LEDs Magazine as a contractor in 2010, and took over as Editor-in-Chief in 2012. He has broad experience in technology areas ranging from microprocessors to digital media to wireless networks that he gained over 30 years in the trade press. Wright has experience running global editorial operations, such as during his tenure as worldwide editorial director of EDN Magazine, and has been instrumental in launching publication websites going back to the earliest days of the Internet. Wright has won numerous industry awards, including multiple ASBPE national awards for B2B journalism excellence, and has received finalist recognition for LEDs Magazine in the FOLIO Eddie Awards. He received a BS in electrical engineering from Auburn University.
Mark Lien – Industry Relations Manager, IES
Mark has designed lighting systems for a wide range of applications including residential, retail, healthcare and both conventional and nuclear power plants. He has provided lighting education, working, presenting and teaching throughout North America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East. He serves on the Executive Committees for the 90.1 Energy Code, and the 189.1 committee that writes the International Green Construction Code and the Steering Committee for the Advanced Energy Design Guides. Mark is an active member of multiple other IES, ASHRAE, IEEE, ISO and ANSI Committees. He is a columnist for Lighting Design and Application Magazine writing on the changes in our industry and he hosts a podcast on lighting trends and technologies. Mark served as Chair of the National Electrical Manufacturers Association Light Source Committee and the IES Progress Committee and as Vice-Chair of the National Lighting Bureau.
He has attained the Lighting Certified (LC) credential and is a Certified Lighting Efficiency Professional (CLEP). In addition, Mark is a Certified Lighting Management Consultant (CLMC) and a LEED Accredited Professional. He also holds the High-Performance Building Design Professional (HBDP) certification. After two decades of lighting design and sales, Mark ran the educational centers for both Cooper and Hubbell Lighting and was the Director of Government & Industry Relations for OSRAM SYLVANIA. He joined the staff of the Illuminating Engineering Society in 2016.
RP-43, Lighting for People in Outdoor Environments, is also new guidance from the IES, and complementary to the design process of LP2. In this session, physical characteristics of outdoor space will be discussed alongside the importance of pedestrian reassurance. Our RP-43 discussion will walk attendees through thoughtful examples and the ground-breaking illuminance recommendations of pedestrian applications. Spoiler alert, you may achieve better results using less light. Highlighted within the RP-43 illuminance tables are a newly organized structure based on the design process itself. Additionally, ranges of acceptable illumination are offered based on responsible design choices such as glare and spectrum, thus giving the designer increased flexibility to achieve their goals.
Webinar participants are eligible for one (1) IES Continuing Education Unit (CEU).
PRESENTERS:
Rick Utting, Director of Strategic Initiatives Landscape Forms, Inc., Moderator
Rick Utting is the Director of Strategic Initiatives for Landscape Forms, an industry leader in the design and manufacture of site furniture and outdoor lighting. From 2007 to 2019 Rick led the lighting program for Landscape Forms by emphasizing quality of light for people and the outdoor environment. As a member of the Illuminating Engineering Society, Rick is Vice Chair of the “Lighting for Exterior Applications” standards committee and a frequent speaker on the topic of outdoor lighting. Rick holds a Master of Science degree from Western Michigan University and thirty years’ experience directing product development that includes a U.S. Patent for low-glare and twelve luminaire design awards. In 2013, Rick created the Lighting Leadership Xchange, a university based event that fosters the exchange of information between lighting design professionals and students from undergraduate illumination programs.
Naomi Miller
Ms. Naomi Miller is a designer/scientist in the solid-state lighting program at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Portland OR. Working to bridge the gap between technology and application, Miller promotes the wise use of LEDs, and works with industry to overcome the hurdles where LEDs are not ready for prime time. Miller has received over 30 architectural lighting design awards for projects ranging from churches to university science buildings, boutique hotels, supermarkets, and parking lots. She chaired the IES Quality of the Visual Environment committee for 8 years and was a principal member of the writing team for Light + Design: A Guide to Designing Quality Lighting for People and Buildings (DG-18-08). She is a Fellow of the IES and Fellow of the IALD.
Charles G. Stone, II
Charles joined Fisher Marantz Stone in 1983 and became President in 2003. The firm’s New York and Seattle studios have received over 200 awards and successfully completed over 5000 projects on five continents. Charles’s “Traveling Light” lecture tour features ten explorations of light and culture and has visited universities and conferences in 22 nations; continuing virtually in 2020 with Podcasts and live Conferences “in” Dubai, Palm Springs, and Buenos Aires. He is a Fellow and Past President of the International Association of Lighting Designers. In addition to annual teaching and recruiting visits to universities worldwide, Charles is active in education as a member of Project Candle at Penn State University, and the Advisory Board for the incipient Architectural Lighting program at Oregon State University. He repeatedly asks his young staff, “what do we make here?…. the answer: “Magic”.
Stop pushing lighting; start sharing light.
“We don’t need anything fancy; we just need regular lighting.”
We are all in sales of some kind. Designers sell ideas and concepts that require the sale of light fixtures. Engineers lay out precise solutions that require the purchase of product and the labor of installation. Manufacturers create lighting products that must sell to keep the doors open and food on the table. Client and customer comments like the one above may strike fear in your heart, and it should. Lighting is not often an easy sell.
Someone else does it faster, cheaper, or better so hurry up, lower your prices or fees, and improve your game. The end user doesn’t want what we have and would rather not pay for it. Nobody cares about our calculations but us and lawyers, the client does not know TM-30 from R2-D2, and the only thing selling like hotcakes are the glare bombs shaped like them.
Now for the good news: you are the keeper of a sacred ancient magic that has the power to transform lives. Life depends on this magical force. Light is a fundamental element of our existence, but we need to learn a second language of light if we are to share this amazing gift with the world.
Join David K. Warfel for a romp through the lighting industry where no one is safe from over-simplification and pithy remarks but where everyone can laugh a little and see the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel.
And it is brighter than ever.
Webinar participants are eligible for one (1) IES Continuing Education Unit (CEU).
PRESENTER: David K. Warfel
David K. Warfel is an overly sensitive, marginally materialistic, pseudo-tree-hugging Midwestern farm boy turned lighting designer. His hyper-sensitivity means he dims everything including his dashboard, and his marginal materialism means he loves high quality light fixtures, elegant controls, and French cuffs. He calms his enviro-consciousness by using energy-saving lighting solutions and wearing hiking shoes to work, and is always ready to roll up his literal shirt sleeves to solve client problems with baling wire and duct tape (although now he prefers gaffers tape). He uses the title “Convergence Designer” since he cannot decide what he wants to be if he ever grows up (unlikely at this point), and practices at the overlap of architectural and performance lighting. He’s as surprised as you are by the list of credits to his name that range from New York’s Carnegie Hall to the Las Vegas’ Luxor and MGM Grand casinos, from Chicago’s Hyde Park Arts Center and Museum of Science and Industry to residential and hospitality projects in Virginia, Illinois, Wisconsin, Nevada, Oregon, California, and Arizona. He has worked with award-winning firms Schuler Shook and CharterSills, and weathered the recession safely cloistered as the head of lighting design at the University of Illinois. David’s work has been featured in Lighting & Sound America, Lighting Australia, Live Design, and Theatrical Design & Technology, but he is usually reading Inspector Gamache novels or other similar educational materials.
Lighting equipment and controls can do more than just provide light to the visible spectrum. Now is the moment to integrate lighting with other building systems, and this webinar will discuss some recent successes and the challenges involved. It will also preview the latest from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Integrated Lighting Campaign, designed to encourage the integration of lighting and other building systems such as HVAC and plug loads, and to promote the use of innovative sensors.
Webinar participants are eligible for one (1) IES Continuing Education Unit (CEU).
PRESENTERS:
Michael Myer, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Michael Myer is a senior researcher at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, where he supports U.S. Department of Energy programs including energy codes, appliance standards, and field evaluations.
Shanna Olson, IMEG
Shanna Olson leads IMEG’s architectural lighting group, drawing on more than a decade of experience creating aesthetically pleasing, efficient, and in-budget lighting designs for municipal, healthcare, educational, retail, historic renovation, and commercial clients.

“Light for Life” is a global conversation about the impact of light on the lives of humans, plants, and animals. As hosts of this collaborative webinar series for the second year, the Illuminating Engineering Society (IES) will once again facilitate webinars over the course of four days the week culminating in International Day of Light (16-May) with partner organizations from around the world.
In practice, the potential of light is something we often view through the lens of our own country’s trends, concerns and accomplishments. By opening this webinar series to global partners, the IES hopes to bring people together to learn from one another about the impact of light on lives all over the world. This series will be free for all.
Please note that CEUs will not be provided for any of these presentations.
Light for Life is designed as a global program, with live presentations scheduled to accommodate the Speaker’s time zone and local audience. If you are unable to join a live presentation due to time difference, please visit the IES eLearning Portal to view the archived presentations. The archives will be available approximately two weeks following Light for Life.

The IES knows you want to take your knowledge with you. In this special webinar, IES staff will guide you through the Lighting Library® – a giant step forward in how we create and deliver standards. This new online subscription-based platform allows access to our full set of standards from anywhere with an internet connection, updates automatically, and allows for more regular revisions of the standards to keep up with the times. This webinar will provide details of how the Lighting Library is organized and how to best utilize the platform as a tool for your lighting business. We’ll also demonstrate two unique features exclusively available through the subscription that allow you to find, save and print illuminance level recommendations for projects of all sizes. At the end, our presenters – Brian Liebel, Director of Standards and Research, Jennifer Jaques, Director of Membership Services, and Zoe Milgram, Research Program Manager – will be available for live Q&A.
No CEU
The movement to design environments that promote human health and wellness has the lighting industry laser-focused on new metrics and tools that can be used to inform the design process. This webinar will provide a critical overview of factors that can affect nonvisual responses to light and discuss simulation techniques that may be implemented to account for daylight spectra and electric lighting contributions to meet different circadian lighting metrics. It will also present a method that aims to facilitate field studies of lighting using data from wearables.
Webinar participants are eligible for one (1) IES Continuing Education Unit (CEU).
PRESENTERS:
Belal Abboushi, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Belal Abboushi is a senior associate lighting research engineer at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. His research examines discomfort glare, lighting uniformity, and daylight integration. Belal is currently the principal investigator for a study that explores the use of wearable devices to assess effects of indoor environmental quality (including lighting) on occupants’ well-being.
Sarah Safranek, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Sarah Safranek is a lighting research engineer at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Her current research involves conducting lighting simulations and field evaluations of advanced lighting systems in support of the U.S. Department of Energy Lighting R&D program.
Shadab Rahman, Harvard Medical School
Shadab Rahman is an associate neuroscientist in the Division of Sleep and Circadian Disorders at Brigham & Women’s Hospital and an instructor in medicine at Harvard Medical School. His primary research interest is in human circadian photobiology with the overarching goal to develop effective photobiologic countermeasures for sleep and circadian disruption. His research has provided novel insights on how light affects human physiology, which can translate to impactful changes in everyday settings such as homes and offices, healthcare facilities, and space missions.
What if you could sit down and have each of the premier lighting research facilities in the United States come to you and distill their recent activities to about ten minutes each? That seems like a valuable use of time and exactly what we have organized for you. Lighting research occurring now provides a glimpse into our industry’s future. What lighting trends are being further researched and why? This is part one of a two-part webinar series. In July, we will feature labs specifically researching light & health concerns. The June and July “Researching Light” Series will be moderated by Mark Lien, Industry Relations Manager at IES.
- Virginia Tech Transportation Institute – Dr. Ron Gibbons
- Pacific Northwest National Lab – Kelly Gordon
- Lighting Enabled Systems & Applications Lab – Dr. Robert Karlicek
- Lighting Research Center – Dr. Nadarajah Narendran
- Lawrence Berkeley Lab – Jordon Shackelford
- Sandia National Lab – Dr. Paul Sharps
Webinar participants are eligible for one and a half (1.5) IES Continuing Education Units (CEUs).
PRESENTERS:
Dr. Ron Gibbons, Virginia Tech Transportation Institute
Ron Gibbons is the Director of the Center for Infrastructure Based Safety Systems (CIBSS) at the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI). He is the Institute’s lead lighting research scientist. He is currently the PI on projects investigating the impact of outdoor lighting on human health, the Spectral Effects of new light sources on roadways, the visibility of police vehicles and is the subject matter lead for the FHWA office Safety IDIQ contract. Dr. Gibbons is also an Associate Professor in the School of Architecture and Design at Virginia Tech. Gibbons is the author of over 80 published papers on roadway lighting, photometry, and target visibility. He is a past Director of Division 4 of the International Commission on Illumination (CIE) and a past president of the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America.
Kelly Gordon, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Kelly Gordon has been a Program Manager at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory for 20 years. She manages the Advanced Lighting Research program with 24 team members who provide core technical support to the US Department of Energy Lighting R&D program. Kelly has focused throughout her career on lighting energy efficiency and technology development. She earned a Master’s in Public Policy from Duke University and a BA in Political Science from Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota.
Dr. Robert Karlicek, Lighting Enabled Systems & Applications Lab
Dr. Robert F. Karlicek, Jr. is a professor of Electrical, Computer and Systems Engineering, and the Director of the Center for Lighting Enabled Systems & Applications (LESA) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Prior RPI, he spent over 30 years in industrial research and R&D management positions related to optoelectronics, telecommunications and lighting systems with corporations including AT&T Bell Labs and General Electric. He obtained his Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from the University of Pittsburgh and has over 56 peer reviewed technical papers and 48 U.S. patents.
Dr. Nadarajah Narendran, Lighting Research Center
Dr. Narendran is a professor and director of research at Rensselaer’s Lighting Research Center. He is well known for his pioneering research in the field of solid-state lighting, including LED performance improvement through novel packaging, development of accelerated life-testing methods, and the use of LEDs in high-value lighting applications. His current research focuses on 3D printing for lighting, specifically investigations of the properties of materials and 3D printed components for lighting fixtures, including mechanical, thermal, optical, and electrical subcomponents. Dr. Narendran and his research group are leading the lighting industry transformation to supply on-site, on-time delivery of cost-effective lighting components and fixtures, and thus changing the current lighting practice. Dr. Narendran has authored more than 130 articles in archival journals and proceedings and holds over 50 patents. He is a Fellow of the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America, the SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics, and a member of the committee on the assessment of solid-state lighting for the National Research Council of the National Academies.
Jordon Shackelford, Lawrence Berkeley Lab
Jordan Shackelford is a Senior Scientific Engineering Associate in the Electronics, Lighting & Networks Group at LBNL. Jordan has over 10 years of experience in emerging lighting and controls technology evaluations. He works in LBNL’s FLEXLAB on experimental design, testing, and analysis, and installs and manages lighting, controls, and monitoring systems in the lab. Jordan has worked on field demonstration projects for interior commercial LED retrofits and networked controls with auto-DR, and on early utility-funded LED street lighting and advanced controls research. He holds a Masters Degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Stanford’s Atmosphere / Energy Program.
Dr. Paul Sharps, Sandia National Lab
Dr. Sharps is the manager of the Advanced Materials Sciences department at Sandia National Labs. He has a PhD in Materials Science from Stanford University. Prior to joining Sandia, he was involved in the development of high efficiency, III/V multi-junction solar cells for over 28 years, both at the Research Triangle Institute and at Emcore / SolAero. He has 24 US patents and over 120 conference proceedings and peer reviewed publications. He has either led or been involved with teams that have developed nine commercial products. Dr. Sharps also has extensive experience with growth, processing, and testing of III/V photovoltaic devices, as well as support of manufacturing yield improvement and process optimization.
In typical practice, lighting designers are responsible for defining design intent and specifying lighting and control technology that they believe will deliver that intent. However, designers often sacrifice control over what products actually get installed, or discover a gap between expected and actual product performance that limits their ability to control characteristics of the finished environment. This webinar will examine multiple approaches to incorporating additional measures of validation, accountability, and control into the design-bid-build process, including vertical integration and digital design environments.
Webinar participants are eligible for one (1) IES Continuing Education Unit (CEU).
PRESENTERS:
Michael Poplawski, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Michael Poplawski is a senior engineer at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, where he primarily supports the DOE Lighting R&D Program. He is the principal investigator for research focused on evaluating and characterizing new connected lighting system technologies and capabilities, exploring the potential for connected lighting systems to provide grid services, and developing related standards and specifications.
Jessica Collier, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Jessica is an associate lighting research engineer on the Lighting Science Research team at PNNL supported by the Department of Energy Solid-State Lighting program. Prior to joining in 2019, Jessica worked as a lighting designer in New York while completing her graduate degree. Her current research interests include light and human health interactions, emerging solid-state lighting technologies and metrics, and ways to translate research findings into practice.
Star Davis, Design Consultant
Star Davis is an internationally acclaimed design consultant with a passion for process innovation. Balancing macro-level strategic thinking with strong technical capabilities, her approach is guided by a deep understanding of human perception, physics, product manufacturing, and construction methodologies.