Timothy Haley is the head of our lighting design and specification services team. In the first of a two-part post, we ask him about the service and the concept of value engineering.

Q: First off, how did you get your start in this business?
I started my career working for a family-owned light distributor in Orange, CA. It quickly grew from a mom-and-pop outfit to become one of the biggest wholesale distributors in southern California.

From my work with tract home developers, I met the LAMPS PLUS folks and eventually joined the company in 1993, running the Orange County office for LAMPS PLUS. Here I became familiar with retail projects and with multi-family apartment construction during the 1990s apartment building boom.

Q: What does the design and specification services team do?
Well, first and foremost, we’ve been very successful at assisting owners, general/electrical contractors, architects and electrical engineers at selecting the best lighting for a required application. In essence, we’re the product guru for these types of people. We’ve been very successful in localized markets. My vision now is that we use LAMPS PLUS Professionals and the Internet to reach the rest of the country with our knowledge and expertise.

Q: So, who should be using your team?
All the people I just mentioned, starting at the top with property owner/ developers, then architects and engineers to designers, general contractors and electrical contractors. Sometimes our point of access to a project is at the top and we work through a project to the contractor level, other times it’s further along at the contractor level. No matter what the level of access, the principals the design and specification services we apply to a project and the value engineering of product and specs is the same.

Q: Tell us a little about the energy compliance reviews.
Being from California, we’ve had an early introduction to the future of energy compliance. Like it or not, the Federal government is leaning towards the California Title 24 code. In fact, Title 24 is part of the cap and trade legislation being considered now in Congress.

No matter how you feel about such legislation, the bottom line is that it would be foolish to build something today without having a thorough energy efficiency review of all the lighting.

Your long-term costs will be much less if built into the construction budget from the beginning. It’s much better to do it right from the start instead of paying for energy costs over time or retro-fitting five-six years down the road. With or without government regulations, it’s financially the right thing to do.

I have extensive experience in energy compliance reviews and finding the right energy efficient lighting product for the right locations. That’s really the key.

Q: What does the term “value engineering” mean?
What it really comes down to is knowing the inherent value and characteristics of product A vs. product B. 

An example of value engineering in practice is you might have an electrical engineer used to using product A, when in reality you could us a less commercial grade, lower spec product at far less cost.

Another example is that, with the myriad of lighting manufacturers on the market, some are good at some things, some at others, but no one is good at all. We have the expertise and knowledge to help you pick the best product for your money.

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Tomorrow in part 2 we'll continue our discussion with Tim and talk to him about product procurement and the challenges facing builders today. Got a question? Leave a comment on this post, contact Tim at 1-800-304-8120, or e-mail him from the LAMPS PLUS Professionals page.