faces of the future - Illuminating Engineering Society

FUTURE LEADERS
RACHAEL
CLARK-LANE
LIGHTING DESIGN
INNOVATIONS
CALGARY, CANADA
CAREER CAPSULE
• Benjamin Moore
Scholarship; Jason Lang
Scholarship; Karen
Miller-Tait Memorial
Scholarship
• Intern designer, City of
Calgary
• Key projects: Banff
Springs Hotel Gold Floor,
Banff, Alberta;
Timber-frame Residence
and Landscape, Okotoks,
Alberta; Medalta
Potteries Interpretive
Centre, Medicine Hat,
Alberta; LDI headquarters,
Batavia, NY
In November 2008, Rachael Clark-
Lane made her lighting debut at the
IES Annual Conference. Hours after
walking across the stage to receive her
college degree, Clark-Lane hopped on a
plane and headed to Savannah to attend
her first industry event through the IES
Young Professionals Scholarship program.
A few months later in the pages of
LD+A, Clark-Lane told our readers about
the combination of nerves and excitement
she had felt as a new recruit surrounded
by an army of lighting veterans.
Soon after, Clark-Lane shook off her
early jitters and hit the ground running.
Just two years later, she is an associate
at Lighting Design Innovations
(LDI) and board manager for the IES
Calgary Section, where she’s leading
the Emerging Professionals program
and offering encouragement to young
professionals like herself.
Perhaps Clark-Lane’s biggest strength
as Emerging Professionals chair is her
ability to empathize with other young
lighting practioners; like them, she is
learning as she goes. “Sometimes you
don’t even know what resources and
opportunities are available to you when
you first enter an industry,” she says.
“Everything is new, and it is hard to
know where to look for personal and career
opportunities and advancement.”
For Clark-Lane, mentors Kim and
Paul Mercier at LDI offered a roadmap:
“To have someone with much more experience
in the industry help you navigate
and find your way is invaluable.”
Likewise, the IES helped boost her confidence.
“At first I just watched from the
sidelines, but I gradually began taking
on some responsibility and felt comfortable
enough to contribute to the discussions,”
she recalls.
After honing her design skills on
commercial, hospitality and residential
projects, Clark-Lane has discovered that
“what I love about light is its ability to
make you see and think about the world
around us. One of my favorite quotes
comes from Charles Eames: ‘Choose
your corner, pick away at it carefully, intensely
and to the best of your ability, and
that way you might change the world.’ I
think I’ve found an exciting corner.”
A FEW KIND WORDS: “Most of an individual’s
contributions are recognized in
retrospect,” says IES past-president and
LDI principal, Kim Mercier. “These include
a conscientious ethic, being designminded,
being learned and learning, and
possessing a sense of responsibility that
comes from within and a drive to be a
better person. Rachael has these characteristics
and is on this path.”
DOWN THE ROAD: Ever the emerging
professional, Clark-Lane “looks forward
to taking on opportunities that will expand
my accreditations and knowledge
of lighting and to be able to apply that directly
to my work.”
Elizabeth Hall
‘This really shows how new I am, but the most excited I’ve been in my
career was when one of my first projects was finally completed and we
turned the lights on. I truly felt like a designer’
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