Page 51 - Jan 2013

January 2013 | Business World Magazine | 51
to be able to respond to those demands,” he
explains.
The association’s drive to promote their
members’ interest has led to a number of
successes in influencing policies. A recent
example was in California when the state re-
vised their Title 24 bill, otherwise known as
the Residential Energy Code. “We were fully
involved with that. We made comments and
we went to Sacramento and testified,” he
says.
As part of that energy code, there is a new
proposal that will mandate specifications for
a new, high efficiency screw-in LED light
bulb. California wants to increase the num-
ber of homes using energy-efficient lighting,
and the association will be making recom-
mendations to the state government on the
required specifications.
“To them that means they want to take
the existing the sockets everybody has in
their homes and make them more energy-
efficient,” he says. “But they’ve been unable
to do that because the penetration rate of
energy-efficient products in California, and
throughout the U.S., is only 20 to 30 per-
cent.”
LIGHTING FOR TOMORROW
The other key focus forThe American Light-
ing Association is their educational train-
ing program. As members complete certain
tasks, they earn advanced designation titles,
including Lighting Associate (LA), Lighting
Specialist (LS), Certified Lighting Manufac-
turers’ Representative (CLMR) and Certi-
fied Lighting Consultant (CLC).
The association also hosts an annual con-
ference attended by approximately 500 of