Charles joined architectural lighting designers, Jules Fisher & Paul Marantz, Inc., in 1983, and helped found FMS in 1997. From studios in New York, Seattle, and Austin, FMS has received 300 awards and completed 5000 successful projects on six continents, including Carnegie Hall, the Washington Monument, the Tribute in Light, the Hong Kong International Airport, the Portland Airport, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles, the Peninsula Hotel in Paris, 41 buildings on the Shanghai Bund, the world’s tallest building - the Burj Kalifa, and the 2nd tallest - Merdeka Tower in Kuala Lumpur.  Mr. Stone is a graduate of Princeton University, a Certified Lighting Designer, LEED and NCQLP accredited, a Fellow and Past President of the International Association of Lighting Designers. He has received Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Edison Report and the ILAS (Mumbai). In 2025, Charles was named a Lighting ICON by the New York Designers Lighting Forum. 

Charles’s Traveling Light lecture tour, which explores light and culture, has visited 25 countries.  Mr. Stone is active in education and research as a member of the Advisory Board for the Architectural Lighting program at Oregon State University, the IESNA Lighting for Outdoor Nighttime Environment Committee, and the Lighting Detectives (Tokyo).

FIALD CLD IES LC LEED AP BD+C