Profiles: IES Emerging
Professionals Committee By MARK ROUSH, FIES, LC, M.ARCH.
The EP Committee has been around now for a couple of decades. EPs are Emerging Professionals with 5 years or less experience to which we also encourage advanced university lighting program students. To me, the primary purpose is to kick start a lifetime of professional interaction that we established veterans take for granted. Fostering their interaction with peers, introducing them to the lighting industry (far beyond and faster than happened for most of us), providing them with early informal mentoring, and exposing them to industry active individuals of multiple backgrounds. All told, through EP programs both nationally and locally, they emerge exposed to volunteerism,
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designing lighting
the IES, the industry, and role models of success to broaden their place in lighting. Through the one-day EP Day program the day before the IES Annual Conference, we endeavor to build their sense of community through formal discussions/presentations, facilitated Q&A sessions, intermingling curated events, and tours of significant lighting projects(s) with the design team’s leadership. The EP Committee is a group of volunteers who work to make this happen while leveraging our own networks to engage other professionals to enrich these experiences.