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Mark has worked for four different California landscape architectural firms through his career. He served in a junior engineer’s position at Kiewit-Pacific, a western USA based company. In addition, he has worked in several management and/or leadership roles within the U.S. Army, Hunter Douglas, Wendy’s International, as well as his own businesses.
He also served in a sales role for regional development with CopperMoon lighting (’09-’11). Mark provided a blog series (’13 – ’15) to help educate and/or present controversial insights towards poor practices by landscape lighting providers. Currently, he is focused on the development and legacy of what ELLI can provide for the next generation of lighting designers.
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Chris has accumulated most of the landscape lighting certifications that exist in today’s market. For over 20 years, he has served as a lighting designer, installer, and maintenance service provider. His company is one of the few across the country that is a stellar model for success—utilizing systems and focused processes. He has served many years working directly with Janet L. Moyer and the ILLI mentor team.
In addition, Chris has served as Chief Experience Officer (CXO) for Amino Health (’16-’20) where he was responsible for the experiences of both the staff and patients. His unique position allowed him to gather insights on how light/lighting can affect patients. He helped to control these environments to harmoniously synchronize patient biological rhythms—this was part of the well-being experience.
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George is credited with so many wonderful projects over his career—too many to list, as it all began in 1979. Initially, George worked with John Watson Landscape Illumination and established an office in Palm Beach, FL and Nassau, Bahamas. In 1982, he left this organization and established Caribbean Lighting Design and ultimately returned to the Palm Beach area. He performed his services throughout the world for elite clients and commercial projects for over 40 years.
Not only is George a lighting designer, but he is a photographer, pilot, and real estate agent. This brings an added level of insight and experience to our ELLI team. One of the aspects that most attracted ELLI to George was his means to address the challenges of landscape lighting design. George believes that lighting design doesn’t have to be done only one way—there are many ways in which to achieve positive results. He wishes to teach others so that they may find the confidence and ability to have their own style.
George is an innovator, too, as he learned many techniques during his early years with John Watson, Artistic Lighting, and William Wertz, as well as several architects, Burle Marx, John Randal McDonald, Carson Wright, Peter Marino and others. He worked with Peter Jackson of Wendel Lighting to develop new product designs. Because of this, George developed his own style of concealing light sources and selectively pruning trees to allow the internal illumination of these forms. He has been recognized for his glare-free designs and treating these environments as a ‘whole’—concepts specifically aligned with the ELLI approach.
ELLI Educator (‘24 – present)
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Chris is a seasoned landscape lighting designer and has been in business for more than 22 years. He has worked as a landscape lighting designer for the nationally recognized, Night Light Inc., as well as Lightscape, Inc. His skill set provides a wonderful addition to the ELLI team as he serves to help educate our students in two areas—lighting applications and design skills.
Chris has shared his expertise as a presenter and instructor to the following groups: Illinois Landscape Contractors Association, Landscape Design Association, Community Associations Group, and local garden clubs. Prior to his landscape lighting experience, he developed additional skills as a chief lighting technician (gaffer) for film and television, where he designed the lighting for commercials, feature films and television sitcoms. This ‘theatrical’-type of experience will lend well to the future offerings that ELLI will provide.
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In his 23-year career in the Army Oak McCulloch held numerous leadership positions in the Infantry and Armor branches. He assisted in disaster relief operations for Hurricane HUGO in Charleston, South Carolina, and Hurricane ANDREW in south Florida. His operational deployments include Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm in Saudi Arabia and Iraq, Peace Enforcement Operations in Bosnia, and Peace Keeping Operations in Kosovo.
He held numerous instructor positions at the US Army Ordnance School, the US Army Command and General Staff College, the Australian Command and Staff College, and the University of South Alabama. His last position in the Army was a three-year tour as the Professor of Military Science at the University of South Alabama where he led the training and commissioning of Lieutenants and tripled the size of the program in his three-year tour.
LTC McCulloch retired from the Army in September 2009 with over 23 years of active service and joined the staff at the Bay Area Food Bank as the Associate Director during the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. He was also the Vice Chair for Military Affairs on the Mobile Area Chamber of Commerce and a member of the Mobile Rotary International Club. He left the food bank in December 2010 to become the Recruiting Officer for the Eagle Battalion Army ROTC program at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. In his 15 years as the Recruiting Officer, he grew the program at Stetson University from 15 Cadets to over 100 Cadets, and he more than doubled the size of the Eagle Battalion. Cadet Command selected Oak as the top recruiting officer, out of 274 recruiters, for 2019. ,In his 15 years of working with Army ROTC he was involved in the commissioning of over 550 Lieutenants for the United States Army.