faces of the future - Illuminating Engineering Society

FUTURE LEADERS
Lighting designer. Builder. Sportsman.
Photographer. International
volunteer. Craig Spring is
lighting’s Renaissance Man.
A lighting designer with Candela,
Spring is currently on a leave of absence
from the firm and traveling with
his wife to Nepal, Southeast Asia and
South America until February. “The
first month we volunteered with The
Mountain Fund, a non-profit organization
based out of Nepal. My time was
spent in a rural mountainous village in
the Langtang region, working with the
local community to implement a photovoltaic
system for a school. Heather will
be working at a nearby clinic, providing
medical care to the community.”
Eventually, though, it’s back to Seattle
to continue a career that’s gotten off to
an impressive start since Spring earned
his Master of Science from the University
of Colorado at Boulder, in 2004. His
first taste of working in the profession
actually came a few years earlier when
he interned for two of the most wellregarded
firms in the industry while
an undergraduate at Colorado. “My first
internship at Auerbach and Glasow in
San Francisco [now Auerbach Glasow
French] was a great introduction into
the lighting industry. Both Patricia Glasow
and Larry French were excellent
role models and educators of the design/
construction process,” says Spring. “The
following summer, I wanted to see a different
perspective out on the east coast,
so I joined Fisher Marantz Stone in New
York for an internship. I was looking for
a different scale of firm and approach to
see what fit my personality best.”
Spring ultimately joined Candela in
2005 and earlier this year earned his
first IES Illumination Award of Excellence
for the Lightcatcher Museum.
Several months earlier, he attended the
IES Annual Conference in Seattle under
the Society’s Young Professionals
Scholarship program.
But it is Spring’s extra-curricular activities
that set him apart. Robert Davis,
his former advisor at Colorado and
now director, product management for
Litecontrol, says his “outside experiences
are what make him a fascinating
person to be around.” He has a passion
for photography, picked up from his father,
a professional photographer. He
designed and supervised construction
for a vacation home for his family, outside
of Breckenridge, CO. And his outdoor
activities include skiing and golf.
Between that and his design and volunteer
work, it’s been a busy few years.
A FEW KIND WORDS: “Craig is one of
the bright young stars in our industry,”
says Litecontrol’s Davis. “As one of the
top undergraduates, Craig was a natural
candidate for graduate school, and I was
fortunate to serve as his thesis advisor
for his Master of Science degree. He designed
and built his own experimental
apparatus as part of this project, an apparatus
that is still in use at CU Boulder.”
DOWN THE ROAD: Spring says he has
“reached that threshold in my career
where I am looking for the next challenge
and opportunity. From opening an
office to experiencing a new locale, both
are appealing and are atop the list.”
Paul Tarricone
CRAIG SPRING
CANDELA
ARCHITECTURAL
LIGHTING
CONSULTANTS
SEATTLE, WA
CAREER CAPSULE
• Associate IALD; LC;
LEED AP
• Key projects:
University of Alaska
Arena; Nintendo corporate
headquarters,
Redmond, WA; Legacy
Children’s Hospital,
Portland, OR
‘The Mine
Shack, the
Lightcatcher
Museum and
Ladder Creek
Falls had varied
challenges.
Each provided
an avenue
for creative
freedom with
light either
enhancing the
architecture or
interacting with
nature’
LD+A December 2010 61