About Us

Stephen Lawton
Stephen advises developers and public agencies on the nuts and bolts of creating places where people can prosper with new approaches to mixed-use street retail. Steve was Director of Community Development for the Bay Area city of Hercules and has ten years’ experience in economic development and planning for local government, with twenty years of management consulting with technology, financial and transportation companies. Steve led the effort that created the first form-based zoning code adopted by a California city, and helped change state law to allow similar smart-growth innovations. He is licensed California real estate broker, and in addition to being a founder of LightPlace Advisors, he is a consultant with Main Street Property Services, Inc. in Lafayette. Steve can be found at steve.lawton.net and on Twitter at @srlawton


Clifton Lemon, MIES
Clifton advises communities, manufacturers, specifiers and organizations on integrating emerging lighting and smart city technology into placemaking. He was formerly the Marketing Com­munications Manager for Soraa, an innovative LED startup company founded by Shuji Nakamura, 2014 Nobel laureate in physics for his work on inventing the LED. Before Soraa he was the VP of Business Development for Integral Group, a leading deep green MEP engineer­ing firm based in Oakland, CA. He is Chair of the Emerging Profes­sionals committee for the San Francisco Section of the Illuminating Engineering Society (IES), and is on the Lighting Quality committee for the International Association of Lighting Designers (IALD). In addition to being a founder of LightPlace Advisors, he is a founder of Clifton Lemon Associates, a San Francisco based consultancy focused on market­ing communications, education, and research for the built environment. Clifton can be found on the web at waterfireshelterfood.com and on Twitter at @cliftonlemon