L I N M O R E L E D L A B S A D V O C AT E S F O R C I R C U L A R L I G H T I N G D E S I G N AT N A L M C O D / / M A R C H 2 0 2 6 / / L M & M
Linmore LED Labs Advocates for Circular Lighting Design at NALMCO By Randy Reid
Wayne Callham has been in the lighting industry long enough to see multiple cycles of innovation, disruption, and, in some cases, unintended consequences. Today, as Vice President of Sales, North America for Linmore LED Labs, he finds himself focused less on chasing the next incremental gain in Wayne Callham LC, CLEP, efficacy and more on CLCP, CLMC something the industry Senior VP of arguably overlooked Sales Linmore LED during the rapid rise of LED: maintainability. Linmore LED Labs, headquartered in California, has built its reputation over the past decade on designing and manufacturing advanced LED lighting solutions for commercial and industrial environments. The company has emphasized engineering-driven performance from the beginning, developing high-output, application-specific luminaires while maintaining a strong focus on reliability. More recently, that focus has expanded to include sustainability—not just in terms of energy savings, but in how products are built, serviced, and ultimately kept out of landfills.
18
At the recent NALMCO Spring Seminar, Wayne served as both educator and industry advocate during one of the Learning Lab sessions. As a member of the NALMCO program committee and board, Wayne is deliberate in how he approaches these sessions. “I want to make sure that we’re filling the need of the organization and not just our corporate need,” he explained. “You have to be careful. It’s about education first.” His session this year centered on the concept of the circular economy, a topic gaining traction globally but still emerging in the U.S. lighting market. Rather than positioning the discussion as a product pitch, Wayne used the platform to introduce attendees to the framework behind TM-66, a technical memorandum developed in the UK to assess how well lighting products align with circular economy principles. “The point of the session was to educate people into what is a circular economy versus a linear economy,” Wayne said. “A linear model is take, make, use, dispose. A circular economy is about maintaining, reusing, and recycling.” In Wayne’s view, the industry’s early promise that LED would eliminate frequent replacements has not fully materialized. Instead, many LED fixtures have proven difficult—or impossible—to repair. “We went from what was supposed to be the last fixture you’d ever buy to becoming the light fixture you can’t maintain,” he noted. Drivers change, components become unavailable, and entire luminaires are often discarded long before the