Steven Rosen, FIALD, CLD, founder and CEO of the lighting design practice Available Light, has announced his retirement, closing a career that spans more than 40 years and more than a thousand projects.
Rosen launched Available Light in 1992 from a single drafting table in his living room apartment. The firm has since grown into a national lighting design practice with six studios and almost 40 people, working across museum exhibition, architecture, themed entertainment, trade show exhibits and immersive environments around the world. His wife, Susan Gochenour, joined the young firm as its first managing director.
Rosen's path into lighting design was not a straight line. He began with a plan to spend a life in the theater, where he found his greatest joy in visually interpreting dramatic works with light. He supplemented that theatrical career by lighting trade show exhibits alongside one of his mentors, Rick Chamberlain. A chance trade show collaboration with museum exhibit designer Nick Paffett led to his first museum commission, the Virginia Air & Space Center. A later, fortuitous encounter with architect Bob Schaeffner produced his first architectural lighting design assignment, a new earth sciences building at Amherst College.
That range — theater, trade shows, museums and architecture — became the foundation of Available Light, which Rosen built on the belief that unrestrained theatrical storytelling could serve a broader audience.
A career of recognition
Rosen's work has drawn wide recognition. He won the first-ever IALD Radiance Award for Available Light's work on Building 7 at MIT. He also 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.
"My greatest achievement has been assembling this team of passionate, talented, and hard-working professionals at Available Light," Rosen said. "Serving as their leader has been an honor and a privilege." He said that with multiple layers of people ready to take on the challenge of running the firm, he decided the time was right to hand over the reins and cheer on their success.
What remains
In its own description, Available Light says that since 1992 it has crafted compelling, innovative, sustainable and insightful lighting design solutions for a diverse range of project types, creating memorable encounters in museum experiences, contemporary architecture, themed entertainment attractions and trade show exhibits. The practice, the announcement states, will continue to evolve, push boundaries and create meaningful experiences through light.