100th Anniversary

The Illuminating Engineering Society celebrated its 100th anniversary in New York City on January 10, 2006.

Since it began in New York City in 1906, the Illuminating Engineering Society (IES) has acted as a forum for the exchange of ideas and information and as a vehicle for its members' professional development and recognition. Through its technical committees, with hundreds of qualified members from the lighting and user communities, the IESNA correlates research, investigations, and discussions to guide lighting experts and laypersons via consensus based lighting recommendations.

The strength of the IESNA is its diversified membership: engineers, architects, designers, educators, students, contractors, distributors, utility personnel, manufacturers and scientists, all contributing to the mission of the society - to advance knowledge and disseminate information for the improvement of the lighted environment to the benefit of society.

The East Carolina Section (Now Raleigh Section) of the Illuminating Engineering Society received its charter in 1976. In celebration of the IES Centennial year in 2006, the East Carolina Section implemented a public outreach program designed to increase the awareness, appreciation and understanding of how lighting can enhance the quality of life in a community. One specific program was working with the North Carolina Fallen Firefighters Foundation to light the Fallen Firefighters Memorial.

The memorial is a major bronze sculpture of four firefighters in a collapsed fatal structural fire scene and will be installed in the center of historic Nash Square in Raleigh , North Carolina . This is the first structural fire scene created to memorialize fallen firefighters in the United States . The artwork will be unequaled anywhere in America