Learn. Connect. Grow.

For CI companies that are embracing lighting as a new category or those CI firms who have been providing design and lighting fixtures on their projects for sometime, everyone will benefit from the education, expert panel discussions and manufacturer sessions...and equally powerful...idea sharing  with your peers. Lightapalooza provides the perfect launch for your companies success and growth in the lighting category in 2022 . 

David Warfel is Midwestern farm boy turned lighting designer, author, and educator who passionately shares the gift of light.  Whether blogging at languageoflight.blog, writing for Houzz.com or designing residential and entertainment experiences from coast to coast, David simply wants to help others live better lives through the scientific and artistic application of light.  From the local theatre to Carnegie Hall, from his parent’s kitchen to multi-million-dollar homes, from local pizza joints to the Las Vegas Strip, from school cafeterias to Royal Caribbean Cruise Line projects, David is endlessly fascinated by the power of light to reveal and transform space.

Keith Esterly has over thirty years of experience as a salesperson, sales trainer and senior learning & development leader, with more than twenty years in the CE/CI industry. His career dates back to the earliest days of CI, when “custom integration” meant a three-way speaker selector and a handful of in-wall volume controls.  He led technology, sales and management training teams for the Tweeter Home Entertainment group, and helped redefine their sales culture as they led the industry into the early days of large-scale custom integration.  He then spent ten years as a senior learning leader with the world’s largest corporation, driving change initiatives and leadership development at the regional and national level.  Keith joined HTSA in 2019 to head up their industry-leading educational efforts, and has been leading the way on transforming the human side the CI business with his unique perspective on training, relationship-based selling and ethical influence.

Professional Career spans 40 years in the Consumer Electronic Industry which Tom says has encompassed everything from 8Tracks to Apps. Over this career Tom has consistently been prescient in identifying niches that promise and deliver growth. While starting out in consumer electronic retail sales he saw the opportunity to start his Integration Company, Tom Doherty’s Custom Audio and Video (1985), which lead to the co-founding its Industry’s Trade Association (CEDIA) (1989) followed by co-founding one the industry’s first convergence company, Escient (1996), as well as playing a key role in the growth and adoption of Gracenote (1998) technologies and services worldwide. In 2001 Tom was recipient of the CEDIA Lifetime Achievement Award. 

While working on DDG projects throughout the country, Tom observed an underserved opportunity and need for higher performance architectural lighting fixtures and lighting design services. DDG brought in professional lighting design to its staff and built his first Lighting Demonstration Lab in 2010. Through providing lighting expertise, demonstration and professional lighting design services DDG proved that through awareness there was indeed a market for high performance architectural lighting fixtures vs commodity contractor grade lighting.  

Sensing the coming opportunity of Custom Integration companies adding Lighting Design and Lighting Fixture Sales as a new category Tom accepted the position of Director, New Technology Initiatives with the Home Technology Specialists of America (2017).  Tom has enjoyed and is proud of the groups progress and growth with the Lighting Category over these past four years and will continue to lead this segment amongst the Custom Installation Industry for many more years to come.