The Lighting Geek

09/02/2026

A customer was wearing a hat to cover her hair loss from cancer and asked I would be ok if she took it off. I answered I will if you will. I think it made her day.

08/31/2026

We no longer hire for a position. We are always interviewing for our employment waiting list. We are growing and I’m tired of the chaos that the hiring process brings.

Good pay, 401K with up to 6% matching, vacation, sick time, paid holidays, 40 hours a week. We provide the uniforms the tools and training by some of the best people in the industry.

We’re no longer looking for people that want a job, we’re looking for someone who wants a future. Our hiring process is very stringent, and we are very picky about who we allow into our work family. If you think you have what it takes and you’re looking for a home, you should look us up.

08/31/2026

You know things are happening when FedEx has to use a bigger truck to send you your materials!

08/29/2026

Mother Nature at its finest

08/29/2026

What is success?

Forty years in and I’ve changed my mind about what success looks like.
It’s not revenue — that number never shows up with the debt attached. It’s not your title, because titles are cheap. It’s not the trucks and it’s not the headcount. I’ve had more of both while doing worse.

The only proof I can’t argue with is a waiting list. Everything else you can say about yourself. A waiting list is other people saying it.

And you can’t have one without turning work down, which is probably why it’s rare.

Still working on mine.

08/27/2026

Good working music

08/20/2026

08/16/2026

I’m probably about to stir up the hornet’s nest here, but I believe this is true.

A lot of people post like big installs are what keep the lights on. For some companies, maybe that’s true. But I think that’s a much smaller percentage than people make it sound like. Most guys may have done some impressive jobs, but I’d bet their real day-to-day income is driven more by maintenance and repairs than giant installs.

We’ve done quite a few $100k+ jobs, including a few over $500k. But those jobs came to us. We didn’t build our company by chasing big jobs with a butterfly net.

Maintenance and repair drive my company. Do they lead to installs? Of course they do. But our bread and butter is still the average job - around $6k-$12k in my market. And I live and work in California, where gas is $6 a gallon and everything costs stupid money.

For the newer people in this business: don’t get too caught up chasing the big job. It’ll come. Focus on customer service every single day.

Don’t pass on work just because it sounds small or cheap. Smaller jobs are where you learn, where you sharpen up, and where you build your reputation. Be kind to people. Do a little something extra on every service call and every install. Make customer service your number one priority.

And don’t get wrapped up in all the nonsense posted in forums. Some of it will have you thinking everybody is landing monster jobs every week. They’re not.

Be coachable. Keep an open mind. Work your ass off. Read. Learn. Get training. Get certified with AOLP. Go to conferences. There’s a ton of knowledge out there, and a lot of good people willing to share it.

On any given week, I’m talking to five or six contractors outside my area just trying to be helpful and encouraging. I didn’t have that when I was coming up.

Success is already written in your future. Go get it.

08/02/2026

My bio written by someone who knows me:

Tommy Herren is The Lighting Geek — purveyor of lighting badassery, certified GEEK, and longtime enemy of bad design. With more than 40 years in landscape lighting, Tommy has built a career on making properties look better after dark and telling the truth about why most lighting sucks.

He is an AOLP Certified Low Voltage Lighting Technician, a dual-licensed landscape and electrical contractor, the author of two books on lighting design, the host of My Lighting Sucks, and a featured expert with more than 20 appearances on HGTV and DIY Network. Equal parts technician, designer, teacher, and troublemaker, Tommy brings deep knowledge, strong opinions, and just enough humor to keep it interesting.

I especially like the ‘troublemaker’ part!