Nominations Open for H Foundation’s Rick Wiedemer Guiding Light Award

The H Foundation has opened the call for nominations for its annual Rick Wiedemer Guiding Light Award, which is presented at the foundation’s Goombay Bash event in Chicago and is the lighting industry’s largest philanthropic event. Through Goombay Bash and other initiatives, the foundation has raised more than $13 million for basic science cancer research over more than two decades.

In 2017, The H Foundation created the Guiding Light Award to specifically honor companies and individuals in the lighting community for their consistent and enduring efforts supporting the

foundation’s mission to fund basic science research and find a cure for cancer. The inaugural award was presented to lighting industry companies Generation Lighting, Hinkley, Kichler, Quoizel, Satco and WAC.

Subsequent recipients have included Lighting One president Gregg Garofalo, Hubbardton Forge CEO Maria Mullen, former WAC Lighting Co-CEOs Dirk and Shelley Wald, and SATCO president Bill Gildin.

In 2022, the award was given posthumously to former Hinkley CEO Rick Wiedemer, for whom the award is now named.

The Rick Wiedemer Guiding Light Award is given annually to an individual or company who exemplifies the leadership qualities that will guide others towards a brighter future in which no one will suffer the hardships of this horrible disease that affects one in three people. It celebrates the community spirit that has used ingenuity to shine a spotlight on and raise money for basic science cancer research. The lighting industry alone is responsible for nearly $5 million of what The

H Foundation has raised for the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center’s basic science research to date, and many members of the lighting industry serve as volunteers and cheerleaders for the cause.

Anyone in the lighting industry may nominate an individual or a company for the Rick Wiedemer Guiding Light Award, regardless of their involvement specifically with The H Foundation or its Goombay Bash, which will take place July 26, 2025, at the AON Grand Ballroom on Chicago’s Navy Pier.