If you ask Amanda Schaneman how she found her way to ETC, the answer starts with people. More specifically, it starts with getting involved, making connections, and saying yes when the right opportunity came along.
Meet Amanda Schaneman, ETC’s Specifier Relationship Manager, a role that combines architectural lighting systems and good old-fashioned relationship building. Schaneman covers the United States and beyond, helping open doors in the architectural space and keeping ETC top of mind with designers, engineers, architects, and specifiers. But Amanda’s path to ETC wasn’t exactly a straight line. She studied architectural engineering at the University of Missouri-Rolla, then spent about five years at Henderson Engineers working in electrical and lighting. From there, she moved to Burns & McDonnell and later shifted into specification sales, first in Los Angeles and then in Dallas.
A complete blend of design knowledge, sales experience, marketing perspective, and industry curiosity now shapes how Amanda approaches her work at ETC. “I’m relatively new to ETC, so I’m still learning the products, but my job is to know people, understand needs, and connect the right questions with the right experts,” says Schaneman. “I like to call it opening doors.”
Long before she joined ETC, Amanda was already deeply involved with the Illuminating Engineering Society. She joined the IES Illumination Awards committee after a former colleague encouraged her to get involved. Today, Amanda serves as chair of the Illumination Awards committee, working with a group that manages everything from submissions and merit judging to final judging and the annual gala.
The Illumination Awards recognize outstanding lighting projects submitted by specifiers. Projects are judged against a set of criteria, with top entries honored at the annual IES conference. Amanda notes that only a small percentage rise to the highest levels of recognition, making the awards a major career highlight for recipients.
As chair, Amanda helps guide the process from the earliest setup details through the final gala experience. Luckily, she has built a committee full of people she enjoys working with — including ETC Northeast Territory Sales Manager, Craig Fox, who is now her vice chair. That community aspect is a big part of what keeps the work meaningful.
Amanda is also working on starting up a new technical committee within the IES with a few others in the industry. Her work on the Trauma-Informed Design committee started when a friend asked her to co-present something at the Lighting Conference and has led to opening more doors and going down more rabbit holes than she could have anticipated.
For Amanda, having ETC supporting this work matters. It shows an interest not just in products, but in the people and projects shaping the lighting industry.
At ETC, Amanda focuses on the architectural side of the business, and her goal is to connect ETC with potential customers so the company can better understand what the industry needs and expects. “My biggest goal is to get people to understand what the architectural industry needs a little better,” she says. It is a simple idea, but an important one: listen first, connect people second, and build stronger solutions from there.
When asked what she would tell the industry, Amanda does not hesitate: get involved. Join a committee. Go to a conference. Find the group of people who care about the same things you do. It does not have to be IES — though she admits she is a little biased — but finding a way to participate can change everything.
For Amanda, getting involved has shaped her career, her friendships, and her sense of purpose in the lighting community. It has introduced her to people she talks to every day, opened up new opportunities, and given her a way to give back to an industry she believes has given a lot to others.
And yes, it should be fun. Amanda believes that loving what you do — and being a little nerdy about it — matters. Because in an industry built on creativity, collaboration, and problem-solving, enthusiasm is not extra. It is part of what keeps the work moving forward.
So, whether she is helping coordinate one of lighting’s biggest awards programs, meeting specifiers across the country, or bringing architectural feedback back to ETC, Amanda’s approach is refreshingly straightforward: show up, listen, connect, and make it enjoyable along the way.
Learn more about IES at https://ies.org/
And the Illumination awards at: Inside the IES26 Illumination Awards