In mid-July, the International Association of Lighting Designers (IALD) Education Trust announced that its board of directors had met and by special vote appointed Steven Rosen, founding principal and creative director of Salem, Mass.-based lighting design firm Available Light, to succeed Ron Naus as Trust President for the remainder of the 2014-2015 term. Naus, President of B-K Lighting and TEKA Illumination, was serving as IALD Education Trust President when he suddenly passed away on May 31.
“Ron brought a different kind of energy to the role than his predecessors [Mark Roush and Dawn Hollingsworth]. Much of their [Mark and Dawn’s] success at the Trust as presidents was creating a much stronger institution. We developed committees, funding strategies, investment strategies and so forth,” Rosen says. “Ron wanted to build on that and talk about how we increase the Trust’s presence within the lighting community. He wanted to create a greater awareness about what the Trust does and let people know that if you are interested in lighting education, you can rely on the Trust to invest the money responsibly.”
Rosen, an IALD Professional member, has been working in the lighting design arena for more than 30 years. A member of several professional organizations including the Illuminating Engineering Society and the United States Green Building Council, in 2003, he was the first recipient of the IALD’s Radiance Award for Lighting Design Excellence for his work on Building 7 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass.
A long- time advocate for lighting education initiatives, prior to assuming the role of Trust President, Rosen was nearing completion of his five year tenure as a member of the IALD Education Trust Fund Board of Directors. Rosen has lectured and taught lighting design in a number of academic and professional settings including New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, New York, and at Emerson College in Boston.
Working alongside Rosen to see the Trust’s initiatives through are IALD Education Trust Secretary-Treasurer Andrea Hartranft, Hartranft Lighting Design, Charlotte, N.C., and Board of Directors members Gustavo Avilés, Lighteam, Mexico City, Mexico; Jimalee Beno, Peerless Lighting, Berkeley, Calif.; Lara Cordell, Wiedenbach Brown, Yorba Linda, Calif.; Mark Sieber, Erco Lighting, Edison, N.J.; Kevin Theobald, GIA Equation Lighting Design, London; and Laura Prestwood Thompson, Archillume Lighting Design, Austin, Tx.
“Ron was one of those rare people who was at once a visionary and an organizer; thanks to his efforts we have, as a board, developed a road map for the coming years. My goal is to serve the IALD Education Trust by helping our team keep an eye on that map,” Rosen said. For further details about the IALD Education Trust’s activities go to ialdeducationtrust.org.
