New York NY, September 18, 2007 – The Nuckolls Fund for Lighting Education has announced that the principals of Horton Lees Brogden Lighting Design (HLB) have made a major contribution to the Fund in honor of the late Jules Horton, founder of their firm. HLB Lighting Design has contributed $25,000 to the Nuckolls Fund and has committed to raise a total of $200,000 over the next two years.
The HLB initiative will fund a $5,000 annual Jules Horton International Student Achievement Award to an international student who has achieved outstanding performance in pursuit of a career in lighting in the US and is enrolled in one of the six United States colleges that offer a full lighting education program. According to the firm, Mr. Horton “always appreciated the opportunities he was given to come to the US as a student of engineering at Columbia University where he received his Masters degree. When he completed his studies, he intended to return to Poland but was given a financial incentive to remain in the US and, as a result, the profession of lighting design benefited. We believe that this award will financially assist students in the process of immigration to the US, again benefiting the lighting design profession.”
Nuckolls Fund President Jeffrey A. Milham noted that the Jules Horton award, like the Fund’s Jonas Bellovin Scholar Achievement Award, recognizes scholastic excellence and encourages young members of the profession, who are the future of lighting design.
Jules Horton, a native of Warsaw, Poland, trained as a structural engineer at the Polytechnic Institute in Warsaw, and in 1947 came to the U.S. to obtain his Masters at Columbia University. Always drawn to art, music, language and literature, he collected an interesting circle of friends during his years at Columbia University’s International House. One of the most significant people he met during his formative years was Abe Feder, who introduced Jules to the world of architectural lighting. In 1969, after working for several other firms, he launched his own business from his living room studio. One of his first large-scale projects was the Dallas Fort Worth International Airport with HOK, and other early work included the Jeddah International Airport, University of Petroleum and Minerals in Saudi Arabia and Tour de Crªdit Lyonnais in Lyon, France. His European background and fluency in English, Polish, German, Russian, French and Italian served him well.
Over the years, he remembered his good fortune in being a young student in a foreign land that offered him the opportunity to be successful, and he always gave his people a chance to show their talent regardless of their past avocation, education or background.
The first Jules Horton International Student Achievement Award will be presented in May 2008 during The Nuckolls Fund Annual Luncheon at LIGHTFAIR International in Las Vegas.