Fueling Light Education

Dan Blitzer, LC, FIES is Principal of The Practical Lighting Workshop, a 30-year consultancy in lighting, marketing, and education. As educator, speaker, writer, and marketer, he brings 45 years of experience to issues of lighting application and technology, energy effectiveness and sustainability.

Dan has served in an advisory role with The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory for 15 years. His commercial clients have included Signify Lighting, LumenWerx, Rayon Lighting, RBW, and previously Genlyte and Lightolier, now part of Signify. Non-commercial clients include The Illuminating Engineering Society, The Building Energy Exchange, and The American Lighting Association. He is a member of The Lighting Agora.

Dan has written guides to energy effective lighting in offices, retail, healthcare, and schools; AIA-certified seminars on a wide range of topics, including lighting controls; remote and face-to-face training materials; guides for the NCQLP exam; and the video and printed history of the Lightolier company, The First Hundred Years. He is principal video interviewer for the IESNYC History Committee’s TALK project and has written the video Introduction to Lighting and the most recent edition of Lighting Fundamentals for the IES.

Dan is currently teaching lighting at the New York School of Interior Design’s MFA program and in the Institute for Continuing Professional Studies.

He is a board member and past president of the Designer’s Lighting Forum of New York, a continuing educator for the American Lighting Association, a President of The Nuckolls Fund for Lighting Education, and a Fellow of the Illuminating Engineering Society. He is Lighting Certified and a mentor in the Guiding Lights Program of the IESNYC.

Dan holds a BA in Economics from Columbia University.

Tom Butters, LC, is the creative mind and developer behind some of the most well received educational tools and events of the global lighting industry. Since 1986, Tom has worked in or served the entire array of the lighting industry. He uses this diverse background and empathy to understand the needs of the individual or organization to deliver high quality lighting education to suit the precise needs of the user. Tom is a proud board member of the Nuckolls’ Fund for Lighting Education and an Emeritus Member of the IES.

As the Senior Manager then Director of Canlyte/Philips Lighting Concept Centre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada from 2000 to 2016, Tom developed and delivered top level lighting education to thousands of attendees in all segments of the lighting industry.

Tom was the co-developer, along with F.X. Morin, of the globally successful free lighting app “IES Ready Reference”. He is the creator of “Light for Life – a Global Collaboration 2020” which involved 17 webinars from 15 lighting organizations from around the world during the COVID-19 pandemic. Tom was the director of the IES’ free 4-hour live webinar “Germicidal Disinfection in the Days of COVID-19” which had over 3600 live attendees from 56 countries and has been viewed by thousands more as a free offering on the IES website.

Tom is a multiple award-winning lighting educator who counts the following as some of his proudest accomplishments.
IES Emeritus Member – 2023
Director of the team that won the 2020 Lightfair Innovation Judge’s Citation Award for the on-line “IES eLearning Portal”
IES Section Service Award – 2018
IES Toronto Section’s prestigious G.G. Cousins Award – 2015
IES Toronto Section Mentorship Award – 2011
Canlyte’s initial class of Certificate of Achievement in Lighting Excellence – 2007

While awards represent his professional success, Tom considers his true success to be the hundreds of former education attendees whom he has helped find passion through lighting. The Lighting Agora intends to continue this trend on a global stage.