034 INTERVIEW / MIKE SIMPSON 035
MEET
EL PRESIDENTE ... (PT1)
In the first of a series of interviews with the heads of the leading associations relating to lighting
design, Jill Entwistle talks to Mike Simpson, president of Cibse about the recent failed merger between
the ILE and SLL and re-establishing the lighting profession within the building services industry
“I WAS REALLY CONSCIOUS THAT A LOT OF
PEOPLE WERE LOOKING TO ME TO MAKE IT
HAPPEN. BUT AS I GOT MORE AND MORE
INVOLVED WITH CIBSE, I BEGAN TO REALISE
THAT ACTUALLY IF YOU LOOKED AT THE PURE
NUMBERS, THE MERGER WASN’T NECESSARILY
GOING TO ADD UP.”
It’s hard to imagine Mike Simpson chilling daughter will invariably also be feverishly tions and as the current president of Cibse.
out with his clarinet or emerging exhausted occupied, in their case with costumes. (Son It is the fact that he straddles both the
from producing the latest local amdram James has managed to combine the two SLL and the ILE, and his pivotal position
extravaganza (he spent Christmas wrestling passions by doing the lighting at Covent as Cibse president, that made him the Big
with a dimming system and the ethernet). Garden). “It’s a bit of a family dynasty Hope of the movement to merge the two
In fact he is so firmly and irredeemably thing,” says Simpson. bodies which came to a head last year.
associated with lighting that it’s difficult to Professionally, he is inextricably linked with Although one attempt had fizzled out a few
picture him with a life outside it at all. Philips where he started in 1977 (he did a years ago, this time it seemed a certainty.
But his family life is clearly deeply impor- six-year stint with Marlin but returned to “I was really conscious that a lot of people
tant to him, and he takes pleasure in the Philips as technical director in 2003) and were looking to me over this year to make it
fact that his fascination with the theatre, with both the ILE and the SLL, where he has happen,” he says. Initially he was a driving
which started with the lighting design and served on countless committees and worked force, and then he appeared to change his
has expanded to scenery, production and on numerous lighting standards and guid- mind.
direction, has spilled over to his family. ances. He now has the full presidential set, Some 18 months before becoming president,
As opening night approaches his wife and having formerly headed both those institu- he says, he still believed it would be viable
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