Up Close with Frank Agraz

By Shirley Coyle

Freshly graduated out of “Industrial Distribution”, a Texas A&M program that is part engineering, part MBA, Frank Agraz was faced with a choice of job offers from three companies. One was a bearings distributor, another was a paper company (think Dunder Mifflin), and the other was a lighting maintenance company. Agraz recalls weighing his options at the time and thinking that “light bulbs are always going to burn out and someone’s going to need them” – choosing a path that brought him into both the existing building retrofit world and the lighting community.

The lighting maintenance business was then in a period of transformation. The introduction of T8 fluorescent lamp technology created opportunities to expand from simply maintaining customers’ lighting systems with the same old lamps to instead providing an upgraded lighting solution along with a multi-year maintenance contract – becoming higher value partners as lighting management companies instead of lighting maintenance companies.

“To sell it, you had to know it”, says Agraz of lighting technology, and he immersed himself in his lighting education, attending every LightFair since 1993, joining and participating in NALMCO (iNternational Association of Lighting Management COmpanies) and the IES (Illuminating Engineering Society). His contributions over a dozen years on the content of certification exams through the NCQLP, which oversees the LC (Lighting Certified) credential, provided an opportunity to bring crucial lighting management content into the exam, as well as to gain an education in all the needs of the other roles in lighting – architect, electrical engineer, contractor, and others. A positive trend noted by Agraz is the expansion of technical and professional certifications by NALMCO – for example, Certified Lighting Controls Professional for those working in advanced lighting controls.

Agraz faced one of his biggest challenges in starting his own lighting management company, just ahead of the 2008 economic crisis, with another colleague. Through those challenging times they found a path to thrive in the transition to LED, eventually selling the business in 2017 to OSRAM.

Now with Eco Engineering, Inc., Agraz is Director, C&I Engineering. He leads a team of auditors and lighting developers who form a hub between the company’s sales and operations teams, developing solutions, preparing packages, and serving as a resource on technology to both teams. Eco Engineering was born as a lighting-only provider in the early nineties and has now branched into sustainable energy, adding solar, EV charging and backup generators to their offering – helping clients with sustainable energy production as well as energy conservation.

Reflecting on the key issues facing lighting management companies, Agraz talked about “the race to zero watts” as efficacy improvements in LED technology have driven the typical fluorescent luminaire from using around 192 watts down to 32 watts and now lower. While there is a one-time massive opportunity for energy savings in upgrading from legacy sources to LED, now that much of the building stock has been upgraded to LED lighting, the question becomes: What’s next? In dealing with existing buildings that are already using LED lighting, there is challenge in funding the lighting upgrade through the traditional means of energy savings. The upgrade solution cost stays the same while the opportunity for saving energy (the denominator in the cost/savings equation) is now very small. Agraz sees the next opportunity as selling the value proposition of “better lighting”, including any or all of - advanced lighting controls, health and wellness, or increased productivity. He adds that these elements of “better lighting” need to be substantiated to the customer with measurement and verification, giving the example of a health and wellness lighting solution that “decreases your average patient stay from 3 days to 1.5 days.”

Agraz has been on the IES Board of Directors for several years, and recently stepped up to the role of President of the IES. His number one goal in leading the 116-year-old not-for-profit organization, following two financially challenging pandemic years, is to make sure that the IES remains healthy and continues to be a lighting community leader. Speaking recently to emerging professionals at the IES Annual Conference, Agraz shared his advice for young people and those new to the lighting community. First, join an organization: NALMCO for those in the retrofit side of the lighting world, and IES, a great complement to NALMCO. Second, get to know your role and the role of all the other players in the lighting community. Third, find a mentor who is in the lighting community to help you find out not only what to do, but what not to do! And finally, try to find the sweet spot of work – where there is an overlap between something you love, something you’re good at, and something that pays well. It’s advice that continues to serve Frank Agraz well in his lighting career. ■