BENYA’S ART & SCIENCE
CHANGES IN
Since my last article, Deborah and I moved across America from northern California to North Carolina. It’s time for us to begin retirement, and after months of study and serious discussions, we ultimately prioritized being a lot closer to family and our oldest friends, the majority living in the east and southeast states.
There were a multitude of other considerations, particularly latitude (36° or less due to winter depression), climate, the quality of senior life, healthcare, and cost of living. While I will miss many friends and things that enriched my life in the West since 1984, we have found the right spot and look forward to this new period in our lives. There’s a lot of emotion and decision-making that comes with retiring after 53 years of working professionally 5 (or more) days a week. Over half a century in the field of lighting, starting with work as an electrical engineer for the Smith Group. That, of course, is where I caught the lighting bug and IES commitment from the late Steve Squillace, my boss and mentor, and from my first co-worker, David DiLaura. After a truly exciting 11 years, I moved to San Francisco and briefly worked for Fran Kellogg Smith, and then on my own or with partners for over four decades, hundreds of projects, dozens of coworkers, and easily several thousand lighting industry colleagues with whom I worked. More than 75% of my friends are part of the industry, too. So, even though retirement means not providing professional services, in my heart I really want to stay connected and participate in some way in the national and international lighting communities. Physically closing an office is one of the most 14
designing lighting
heart-wrenching steps in the process, and it is really overwhelming. Books, catalogs, photographs, thousands of 35 mm slides, hundreds of medium format film images, IES Handbooks (5th Edition on), reference books, and several generations of LD&A, Progressive Architecture, Architectural Record, and Architectural Lighting in which I had written more than 60 articles since 1975. Copies of my books, Lighting Design Basics (2007 and 2012 editions) and Lighting Retrofit and Relighting: A Guide to Energy Efficient Lighting (still available on Amazon). Multiple IES handbooks and individual recommended practices. And my treasures, including the EdisonReport Lifetime Achievement Award, the crystal trophies of three IES Awards of Excellence, and dozens of framed lighting design award certificates. Yes, winning design awards was very important to me, and I was certain to share credit with the whole project team. Moreover, the awards serve as a reminder of the people with whom I worked and the role I played in achieving something special. Literally, a story of relationships and project challenges is found in each one. I plan to keep a few in a special place, like a shrine, maybe in my living room. On the other hand, cleaning out the sample room was relatively easy. Friends and family know that I “lean green,” so the trash bin is unacceptable. I take care of samples and return most of them while they are still viable. If the rep doesn’t want them, I make sure that they work and donate them to Habitat for Humanity. I also have a reasonably up-to-date group of light meters including illuminance, luminance, and spectrum