Available Light has announced that founder and CEO Steven Rosen, FIALD, CLD, is retiring and handing over leadership of the national lighting design practice he established in 1992.
Rosen's lighting design career spans more than 40 years and, by the firm's account, more than a thousand projects, along with awards and 35 years of Available Light history. Available Light described his greatest legacy as the community of designers, collaborators, clients, students and friends he influenced, and learned from, along the way.
From Theater to Architectural Lighting
Rosen began with a plan to spend a life of design in the theater, where nothing brought him greater joy than interpreting a dramatic work with light. He supplemented his theatrical career by lighting tradeshow exhibits alongside one of his mentors, Rick Chamberlain. A chance tradeshow collaboration with museum exhibit designer Nick Paffett led to his first museum commission, the Virginia Air & Space Center. A few years later, an encounter with architect Bob Schaeffner led to his first architectural lighting design assignment, a new earth sciences building at Amherst College.
The sequence of theater, tradeshows, museums and architecture shaped his approach. Rosen said of working across disciplines: "Why focus on one discipline when I could do it all?"
Building Available Light
He built Available Light on the belief that unrestrained theatrical storytelling could serve a more expansive audience. What began as a single drafting table in his living room apartment in 1992 grew into a national lighting design practice with six studios, almost 40 people and a portfolio spanning museum exhibition, architecture, themed entertainment, trade show exhibits and immersive environments around the world. His wife, Susan Gochenour, signed on as the young firm's first Managing Director.
Rosen won the first-ever IALD Radiance Award for Available Light's work on Building 7 at MIT. He received Lifetime Achievement awards from both LDI/Live Design and The Edison Report, became a Fellow of the IALD, and was named to the 2025 blooloop 50 Top Museum Influencer list.
Handing Over the Reins
Rosen said his greatest achievement has been assembling a team of passionate, talented and hard-working professionals at Available Light, and that serving as their leader has been an honor and a privilege. Realizing there were multiple layers of people ready for the challenge of running the firm, he decided the time was right to hand over the reins and cheer on their success.
The firm said he built a place where creativity, curiosity, storytelling and lighting will continue to thrive, and that Available Light will continue to evolve, push boundaries and create meaningful experiences through light. Since 1992, the practice has crafted lighting design solutions for museums, contemporary architecture, themed entertainment attractions and trade show exhibits.