I hope you’ll indulge me on this post. Harold Wagner died in April and I just found out.
Most of you who read this blog will not know Harold. Before I was asked to take a more outward-facing role for my longtime employer, I was just like him, a cog in the new product development process of lighting. We did not know customers, sales reps, the lighting media, competitors and the design community. You did not know us. Harold’s departure from this world reminds us that there is a whole world of people who quietly create lighting in the background of the industry.
Harold arrived when the company was growing rapidly. He had worked for another lighting company in Cleveland, ran a design/engineering department for a housewares company for a very long time and even did some freelance design. He immediately jumped in and made a huge difference. I have often said, without him, the company simply would not have been able to release the quantity of products it did during that era. He was a speedy “drafting machine” in a world prior to Computer Aided Drafting (CAD).
When it was time to retire, he accepted the handshakes, chuckled at the ribbing he received at his retirement sendoff and enjoyed a fulfilling life. There were no email blasts, no press releases, no platitudes from industry leaders commending his value to the greater good. Instead, he did what most people do, he found a life outside the industry. He leant his tenor voice to a barbershop quartet, taught watercolor painting to seniors and used his compassion for others as a church elder. Harold was not the kind of guy to “sit around” so these were not his only activities, but you get the point.
Within the lighting industry, there are thousands of “Harolds” across every company. I worked with an amazing administrative assistant for years. She got data entered into the system and information passed to vendors all while coordinating and balancing a dozen problems that arise each day in a chaotic engineering/graphics department. I remain friends with a business analyst who kept the backside of operations cooking for years, so customers got their orders placed and products were delivered on time with a minimum of trouble. I still chat with and an export/logistics person who found shipping containers when no one else could, while simultaneously grinding the shipper’s fee to a pittance. Talented designers created four times more ideas than were eventually produced and a model shop magician who could literally turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse, (if needed) all while correcting an engineer’s “mistake.” I worked with a purchasing agent, who, I swore gave advice to half of the company on their supposed area of expertise and a packaging expert who made sure everything arrived in one piece and personally packed thousands of “special orders” for customers who were desperate for a last minute “something” that had to arrive quickly and unbroken. If I had a few weeks, I could fill scores of blog posts with more lighting industry champions.
Many of you know me, because of the bowtie and the shoes and the educational webinars and the quotes in all sorts of media. I’m just the most visible portion of an important iceberg that designed, purchased, packed, shipped, inventoried, billed, financed, paid and administered a full industry.
I’m thinking a lot about Harold Wagner this week. If you’re in the lighting industry, or any business, there is a Harold in your background. Make sure they know how important they are to the industry’s greater good…and to you.
Lighting by Jeffrey 