Krystle Smith is a senior lighting designer at Rushing. We asked Krystle to give us a peek into her work-from-home life as well as share about how she got into her field and a project she’s excited about right now.

Q. How did you get interested in lighting design?
A. A lie. My high school teacher needed students for her Stagecraft class. I wanted to be a writer and go into film studies, but the film directing class was full for the semester (it was always so popular). “Stagecraft?” I asked. “You’ll learn everything a good director needs to know,” she assured, so I naively signed up. For the next two weeks I was hanging lights, running cable, painting sets and telling actors to shut up backstage in preparation for a production of The Music Man. When I called her out on the fact that this clearly wasn’t what I was looking for and felt she lied to me, she said, “So I told a little white lie? Theatre is more fun and you have a natural knack for lighting.” Annoyed as I was, she was right—it was ridiculously fun and I did discover talent for something I never even knew about. “Well, at least there are lots of jobs and great pay to be had in theatre, right?” I worriedly inquired. “Oh…,” she slightly paused as if caught in a moral dilemma, but ignoring it continued, “…of course!” It wasn’t until I graduated college that I realized I’d been had again, but I eventually found my way into architectural lighting design, which I enjoy immensely.

Q. What has brought you joy this week?
A. Working from home—CALI STYLE! I figured out how to take my Teams meetings poolside when the weather permits, and in California the weather is always permitting.

Q. How are you staying active?
A. Next question…

Q. Have you picked up any new hobbies?
A. I started doing cross stitch. It’s easy and they have fun patterns that speak to me.

Q. Which projects are you excited about right now?
A. I’m excited about the California Theatre project in San Diego, California. It hits all my lighting wishes that I like in a project: challenging energy codes, dynamic lighting features and opportunities for growth and development in a new area of the market.

Q. Anything else you want to add?
A. If you’re wondering what happened to that unscrupulous teacher of mine, you should know she remains a beloved mentor, friend and liar to all teenagers she thinks need a push out of their comfort zone.

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Meet the rest of our lighting team or check out more work-from-home employee spotlights:

Linda Coppa, senior mechanical engineer
Stefanie Young, senior sustainability consultant
Brian Hoang, electrical project engineer
Ian Robinson, energy analyst/mechanical engineer
Ron Wilhelm, senior plumbing designer