In January 2003, I replied to an ad in The New York Times seeking an editor to run a monthly engineering magazine published by a professional society. In the blink of an eye, we now fast forward two decades to my final column as editor and publisher of LD+A.
So how did we get here? Twenty years on a monthly magazine is a long run—until this point my sweet spot was about six—but what kept things interesting is you, the reader, and our industry. I’ve always said the beauty of this profession is that you ask a lighting person for 30 minutes of their time and they will gladly give you 60. And as the industry radically changed—the emergence of light and wellness as an idea to a true application, the transition of LEDs from “not ready for prime time” to the ubiquitous light source—so did our content, and it was an honor to navigate that journey.
All of which brings me to the “I’d-like to thank-the-academy” section of this column. In addition to the late, great IES Executive Director Bill Hanley, there’s the staff of LD+A—past and present—without whom there is no magazine. Also, a huge thank you to our contributors (including regular columnists such as Mark Lien and Paul Pompeo, who have been with me almost from the beginning) and my learned colleagues on the IES staff. Last, but certainly not least, thank you to my wife Wendy and my sons Michael and Peter for listening to my tales of lighting and publishing, night after night at the dinner table.
With that, it’s my pleasure to welcome LD+A’s new editor, Craig Causer, and to pass along one lesson I’ve learned over the years: Always remember that we don’t publish LD+A for individual committees or constituencies, or for the Board of Directors, or for advertisers. We publish for the “typical” IES Member; the one who you don’t know, who approaches you at a trade show or in the conference hotel elevator and says, “LD+A, right? I like what you do.” Simply stated, but words to live by.