Catching Up With George Stringer of Soraa at LFI 2018

One of the industry leaders to set up a booth at last week’s LightFair 2018 conference in Chicago, IL was Soraa. We stopped to speak with their Senior Vice-President of Sales and Marketing, George Stringer.

“The nice thing about LightFair this year is that we were selected as one of the top ten booths to see because of an award-winning product,” Stringer said. “People forget that we’re a technology company first. We’re a semiconductor company. We make violet based semiconductors in Freemont, California, because we believe that natural light should mirror what the sunlight does.”

For Soraa, there is an understanding that to meet their customers’ needs, the technology must be perfected before applications and products are even discussed. It is this dedication to the small details that has made them so popular with companies who crave the aesthetic provided by natural light.

“The people who care most about color quality would be museums, retail, high end, residential and hospitality. Those are the markets that we cater to,” Stringer said. “We’ve started focusing primarily on retail because that’s where light and color really matter.”

Stringer stopped to show us one of their cutting-edge designs, the Radiant GU10. It is a directional light that allows for proper lighting in spaces where display is essential.

“Museums are a critical vertical for us. If you think about what they’re trying to do in terms of color for the artwork and sculptures – if you’re going to have beautiful antiquities and art you want to light them with the best color quality of light,” he said. “I would say we’ve done close to 300 museums in North America alone,” Stringer noted.

Internationally, the company has a strong presence as well. Soraa’s products even light up the Palace of Versailles. Stringer believes much of this success is simply because they listen to what customers are asking for and find ways to make that a reality. When more lumens were required, they found a way to develop fixtures with more design freedom to incorporate heat sinks. And when it was discovered that violet light can be used to get rid of unwanted bacteria, the company began to develop innovative concepts using the technology they already had at their disposal.

“We found that we can increase the output of violet light to 405 nanometers and kill most of the bacteria in an eight-hour period,” Stringer said. “Violet has many purposes, it renders white, it gives better color, it gives a healthy light solution and it has medical applications for bacteria removal. We’re doing all of that for technology today, but also for products for the future.”

Follow us on social media for the latest updates in B2B!

Image

Latest

Class 8 trucks
Driving the Future at ACT Expo: Windrose Showcases Its Purpose-Built Electric Class 8 Trucks
July 1, 2025

At the ACT Expo, Hammer Down host Mike Bush dives deeper into the future of freight with a hands-on look at Windrose Technology’s electric Class 8 trucks. Joined by Joseph Jaramillo, Driver Supervisor at Talon Logistics, Mike takes a test drive to experience the smooth ride, dual digital displays, and unique features—like advanced regen modes and a…

Read More
ball valve
Zero-Friction Flow: Trillium Launches the Red Point® Non-Contact Rising Stem Ball Valve to Cut Downtime, Boost Safety, and Perform in Demanding Applications
June 30, 2025

Join host Michelle Dawn Mooney for this special episode of FlowCast by Trillium Flow Technologies, as she sits down with Fred Jansen, General Manager of Trillium’s Netherlands facility, and Pepijn Esman, Engineering Manager for Red Point, to unveil the non-contact Rising Stem Ball Valve (RSBV)—a breakthrough engineered for extreme-service applications across oil &…

Read More
student success
The AI-Powered Edge in Education: How LearningClues Is Enabling Student Success with Co-founder and CEO Dr. Perry Samson
June 30, 2025

As AI continues to reshape education, institutions face a growing challenge in ensuring students succeed without compromising engagement or integrity. Today’s college students are often juggling jobs, family, and coursework, leading to limited study time and increased dropout risk. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 40% of full-time undergraduates and 74% of…

Read More
AI Strategist
Why Enterprises Need an AI Strategist and Why It Should Be a Marketer
June 30, 2025

In this episode of The Marketing AI SparkCast, Aby Varma, founder of Spark Novus, a leading consultancy that partners with marketing leaders to adopt and scale AI responsibly and strategically, talks with Nicola Smith, Senior AI Programs Advisor at Southwest Airlines. They explore how enterprises can move beyond tool experimentation to embed AI into…

Read More