As she stood near two pillars of cold fire streaking skyward from Ground Zero, Monica Allen’s blood ran cold too, from deep and mixed emotions.

But at the same moment, her U.S. competitors were cursing and kicking the dog.

How, they grumbled, did these damned Great White Northerners land such a choice plum?

Jack Dagley photo, for Business Edge
Monica Allen's Space Cannon underpins the WTC Towers of Light tribute in New York.

Only the mightiest players stepped up to create the six-month memorial to the destroyed towers of Manhattan’s World Trade Centre.

Con Edison donated the electric power. Deutsche Bank, AOL Time-Warner and General Electric supplied cash.

And Monica Allen’s Space Cannon Illuminations Inc. of Edmonton brought the 7,000-watt Italian searchlights, which the New York Times said looked like stout, stubby shootin’ cannons.

Allen sat at a table on the bleak industrial strip of 50th Street last week, still mildly thunderstruck by her coup.

“I had been trying to get our product in front of the lighting designer, one of the most reputable in North America,” she explained, adding her efforts had made no noticeable impact.

“So later, when I was asked to take a call from a Paul Marantz, I thought: ‘This is very odd.’”

That call shook the world of a down-to-earth but creative Edmonton woman, who started by hauling spotlights to car lots and video-store openings.

On the phone that day, an enthused Marantz, co-founder of the architectural lighting firm Fisher Marantz Stone, told Allen that Space Cannon was the first product he considered while looking for help with the WTC Towers of Light tribute.

Marantz had been sought out by New York’s Municipal Art Society for advice on the technical end of the memorial.

The spectacular beams, which appeared on the Times’ front page the morning after the skies lit up, will remain in place through mid-April.

“And when the lights were turned on, you could hear the gasps,” she said.

So, how does a hard-working Canadian flatlander make the transition from the Blockbuster Video parking lot to Battery Park, U.S.A?

Things began to simmer for Allen about five years ago, when she and her husband, Jim, found themselves unexpectedly at loose ends. Their Edmonton-Calgary lighting rental business had pretty much flickered out when the manufacturer they worked with was ingested whole by a bigger outfit.

“We started wondering: ‘Now what?’ ” Allen reminisced.

In semi-desperation, the couple lit out for a Las Vegas trade show.

There they wandered past an intriguing booth. It contained floods of coloured light and a crowd of friendly, excitable but language-challenged Italians.

By means of sign language and pidgin English, the Allens established a bond with the Europeans, including Bruno Baiardi, the engineer who doubles as president of the original Space Cannon.

Based in the village of Fubine, Italy, Space Cannon manufactures xenon-based products which evolved from carbon-arc searchlights used by the military during the Second World War.

Touch base with Baiardi’s English-language Italian website (www.spacecannon.it) to learn more than you ever cared to know about the technology, plus its revered – by Bruno, anyway – inventor, the long-lamented Heinrich Beck.

For our purposes, it’s enough to know the Allens won exclusive North American distribution rights for the products of their new Italian associates.

Since then, with Baiardi’s help, Monica has been building her company’s knowledge base, and its roster of high-impact successes.

For spectacular examples, check the images on the Italian website. Pay particular attention to Bogota’s Colpatria Tower and the Hotel Sheraton in Orlando, Fla., plus the company’s award-winning design for last year’s Lighting Dimensions International show.

Baiardi’s technology is unique and visually arresting. It incorporates so-called “dichroic” tubes, which allow master technicians to bathe buildings in a multitude of colours by artfully manipulating a tri-colour base of cyan, magenta and yellow.

With her major moment behind her, Allen is currently drooling at the possibilities, right here at home.

She’s already angling to jazz up local landmarks she believes are thirsting for a visual makeover, using brilliant, multi-coloured night lights.

There’s the venerable Fairmont Hotel MacDonald, which presides majestically over Edmonton’s river valley.

“It would have to be very tastefully done, to accentuate the hotel’s regal appeal,” she diagnosed.

“Another one we’ve been looking at very carefully is (Edmonton’s) Skyreach Centre,” Allen added, while conceding that Calgary’s Saddledome also dwells in the illuminatory dark ages.

Can you say dull, dull, dull?

“There’s a white canvas that’s just dying for colour,” grimaced the woman who replaced the Twin Towers.