Mini Interviews

SYNKD West

Adam Heard
VP of Sales,
The Arbor Group
San Diego, California

What inspired you to get into the industry?
I believe that the gap between what is needed to steward and care for the urban forest and what is currently being provided by the industry needed to be bridged, I believed I could help be a part of that process.

What’s the best part of your job?
One of my greatest pleasures in my job is when I watch that “click” happen in a client's experience where they learn something new and see tree care in a new way that makes great service and working with highly knowledgeable professionals a necessity.

What’s your favorite place you’ve ever visited?
I love Lake Tahoe in the summer. It’s a magical place and my soul feels calmer when I’m there.

What would you blow your money on?
Traveling the world to eat as many exotic foods and experience as many exotic and hidden Easter eggs as possible.

What’s the biggest challenge you’ve faced professionally?
Learning how to navigate being a full-time single dad of three amazing daughters, while also performing at an executive level in sales.

What’s the one thing that would make the industry better?
This may sound harsh, but I believe that the industry would be much better if there were higher requirements of expertise, talent and certifications required for someone to start a tree service. And I also think that there should be a significant difference in requirements to be able to touch a tree between landscape contractors and tree care contractors. Too many companies are allowed to provide tree services that perform careless work and cause irreparable damage to trees.

Who do you most admire in the industry?
I still have a deep admiration for the former founder of A Plus, Jeremy Tibbets, whose vision for what the tree care industry could become was way ahead of its time. 

What’s your best childhood memory?
Watching Haley’s Comet from the top of Mt. Haleakala in Hawaii when I was in first grade with me family. I’ll never forget it.

Where’s your happy place?
Lake Tahoe, Sunday brunch with my kiddos and Christmas morning with my entire family.

What’s the key to great design?
Great vision

What three items would you take with you on a deserted island?
The Bible, my family, a yacht. 

What has the quarantine taught you?
That loneliness is lethal and the power of interpersonal communication and in-person meetings cannot be matched by anything virtual.

What’s your ideal Saturday?
Sleep in, take my girls to brunch, get in a workout, do something outdoors with a close friend and enjoy time with my family and cook an amazing meal together.

What are you most proud of?
My daughters. They are beautiful, authentic and loving young women and who they are and who they are becoming makes me so proud to be their dad.

What is your favorite phrase, slogan?
“Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.”

What is something not many people know about you?
I’m a triplet.

What’s the best advice you have received for your career?
Learn how to say “no” and don’t ever let my career happen at the expense of my peace and happiness.

What advice would you give to someone entering the green industry?
I would tell them to hold onto their ideals and passions and learn how to push through what the industry gives and be willing to be bold enough to do what you can to change it.

What is your favorite karaoke song?
“We’re Only Gonna Die For Our Arrogance” by Sublime.

Matthew Vasquez
Landscape Design Associate,
Michael Glassman & Associates
Sacramento, California

What inspired you to get into the industry?
I've always loved nature and had the desire to design, but the defining moment was in my first spring semester at junior college. The horticulture professor played a video about all the different fields that use horticulture in some way or form. Midway through it, the video spoke about landscape architecture/landscape design. It was that shining moment when I knew what I wanted to pursue. 

What’s the best part of your job?
The creative problem-solving aspect. I always describe the industry as an artistic science. The ability to take an idea and turn it into a built reality is a surreal experience. 

What’s your favorite place you’ve ever visited?
The Butchart Gardens in Victoria B.C. That place is absolutely stunning! So many colors, the attention to detail, just everything about it is done so well and the maintenance is immaculate. 

What would you blow your money on?
Building my dream residence. I have had this vision of the place for 10 years now. 

Where’s your happy place?
In Washington state, there was a hike I went on and the clouds were in the sky, the forest was super green, and there was no one else around. I got to the lake I was venturing to and it was just so peaceful, serene and moody. But moody in a good way. The silence and calm nature of that environment is a very happy place to me.

What’s the key to great design?
When the function of a space is created in a beautiful fashion.

What is your favorite phrase, slogan?
“Pressure makes diamonds.”

What advice would you give to someone entering the green industry?
Do not be afraid to fail. A failure can actually be a great lesson and end up helping leaps and bounds in the future.

Brian Linson
Owner/CEO,
BL Landscapes
Oak Harbor, Washington

What inspired you to get into the industry?
I have been enthralled with everything landscape-related from a very young age. My love began with plantings. Studying their growth habits and being awed by their incredible beauty. That love evolved over the past 35 years into a passion for design and installation of complete landscape packages.

What’s the best part of your job?
Hands down, the best part of my job is bringing a vision in my head to reality and watching it grow and mature over time into something even greater than I could've imagined. Garden spaces take on a life of their own, and it's magical to witness.

What’s your favorite place you’ve ever visited?
I would be hard-pressed to pick my favorite place I've ever visited, however, the Portland and Seattle Japanese gardens are definitely at the top of my list.

What would you blow your money on?
Tools and equipment. You can never have enough!

What’s the biggest challenge you’ve faced professionally?
Simply learning how to manage the office side of the business. The physical work and design side of things came naturally. The taxes, insurance, billing, paperwork side of it was a huge challenge that I'm still learning daily.

What’s the one thing that would make the industry better?
More camaraderie. Sharing knowledge and techniques with each other helps grow the industry and our standards.

What’s your best childhood memory?
Spending hours outside in nature creating my very first gardens in the dappled shade under the canopy of mature Alder trees. The sights, the smells, the feelings are still vivid to me after all these years.

Where’s your happy place?
My happy place is split between the woods and the beach. I try to spend as much time as I can with my family in both places. Being surrounded by nature brings a sense of calm to me that is indescribable.

What’s the key to great design?
A beautiful balance of aesthetics and function. Colors, textures, sight lines, sounds and scents all come together to invoke a feeling of relaxation and enjoyment. Add in functionality, and you've got a winning combination.

What three items would you take with you on a deserted island?
Music, shelter, food. 

What has the quarantine taught you?
Adaptability is key to survival.

What’s your ideal Saturday?
Relaxing with family and barbecuing. 

What are you most proud of?
I am incredibly proud of the huge portfolio of work we've accomplished over the years. I'm proud of challenging myself to take on things that seemed out of my abilities and overcoming those doubts.

What is your favorite phrase, slogan?
“Quality without compromise.” It's a mantra that myself and my crew live by.

What advice would you give to someone entering the green industry?
Believe in yourself and learn from every single person you come in contact with.

Michael Bernier
Design Director,
Michael Bernier Design
Los Angeles, California

What inspired you to get into the industry?
Ever since my childhood, I have loved nature and have been fascinated by the idea of creating art with plants. So, after many challenging years in the advertising and marketing world, I knew I needed to make a career change. I wanted to do something more beneficial with my design skills, to become part of the solution and not continue to be part of the problem. 

What’s the best part of your job?
The ability to work with nature and create beautiful and inviting outdoor spaces for people to explore, relax and unwind in, and ultimately maybe even find themselves as part of nature. I love bringing more natural beauty into the world where it may not have existed before.

What’s your favorite place you’ve ever visited?
Italy

What would you blow your money on?
Travel and great wine. 

What’s the biggest challenge you’ve faced professionally?
Getting everyone who is involved in the process to understand the necessity and value of good design for every project.

What’s the one thing that would make the industry better?
Getting everyone involved in the process to understand the necessity and value of good design for every project.

Who do you most admire in the industry?
Contemporary designers Bernard Trainor of Ground Studio Landscapes and Scott Shrader for their restrained elegance and ability to seamlessly integrate the architecture into the natural landscape. 

What’s your best childhood memory?
Spending time in the backyard of my childhood home with my mother exploring and learning about plants.

Where’s your happy place?
In bed ... or in nature.

What’s the key to great design?
There's so much that could be said here, in fact, I've created an entire online course about it!

What three items would you take with you on a deserted island?
Food, water and a boat.

What has the quarantine taught you?
The value of human connection and maintaining a connection to nature, our greatest teacher and healer.

What are you most proud of?
Having successfully completed well over 100 landscape projects over the past decade of running my own business, and doing it after an abrupt mid-life career change. Today, however, I am really proud and excited about the release of my online landscape design courses for both professionals and the do-it-yourselfer. 

What is something not many people know about you?
I was a creative director in the advertising and marketing world for many years before becoming a landscape designer.

Tim Moshier
CEO,
Cambium Inc.
Seattle, Washington

What inspired you to get into the industry?
A love of plants from an early age followed by exploration of design, environmental psychology, cultural anthropology and natural sciences in college. It all came together in landscape architecture.

What’s the best part of your job?
Interaction with people. I love meeting new clients, working with the team here at Cambium, other contractors and peer professionals. I’m definitely a “people person.” 

What would you blow your money on?
Aston Martin DB11. But I’d need a place to park it!

Who do you most admire in the industry?
Piet Oudolf. His innovative use of perennials and grasses in a natural manner, carefully curated, can be stunningly beautiful.

What’s your best childhood memory?
Summer vacations on the shore of Lake Huron in northern Michigan. Swimming, walks in the woods of white pine and birch while grazing on wild blueberries, visiting lighthouses and enjoying family bonfires on the beach.

What’s the key to great design?
Principals of color, line, texture, volume, balance, contrast, emphasis … harmoniously working to meet program goals and clients’ desires. 

What three items would you take with you on a deserted island?
Suntan lotion, water, a good book.

What has the quarantine taught you?
We can be incredibly resilient and innovative. In extremely difficult times, folks will largely come together and work for the greater good. Some of us have the capacity to be so caring of others and generous with time and resources—it is inspiring to me to try and do better with other folks.

What are you most proud of?
Building a business that has rewarded employees with a great work environment, engaging projects and just compensation. It is difficult at times, however, very rewarding.

What is your favorite phrase, slogan?
“If you think you can, you will; if you think you can’t, you won’t.”

SYNKD South

Ed Jenson
Vice President,
OLM, Inc.
Kennesaw, Georgia

What inspired you to get into the industry?
I enjoyed being outdoors and, when I realized I could make a living without having to wear out my brain cells doing higher math, advanced chemistry and writing a doctoral thesis, I said, ‘lets go for it!’

What’s the best part of your job?
Interfacing with a diverse group of people, from landscapers to property owners.

What’s your favorite place you’ve ever visited?
For work, São Paulo, Brazil. For pleasure, Yellowstone National Park.

What would you blow your money on?
Dog training. Although I have spent more than I care to admit and know more than the average person, I have not figured out how to get my dog to bring/retrieve. 

What’s the biggest challenge you’ve faced professionally?
Unreasonable owners. You know you are right, but you still have to suck up … to a degree.

What’s the one thing that would make the industry better?
Better wages for the guys and gals in the trenches.

Who do you most admire in the industry?
George Morrell. He said that he never wanted to be the biggest, just the best. I won’t say that he ended up being the best, but he worked hard at it until he passed.

What’s your best childhood memory?
My high school football days with my friends who I still stay in touch with today. And a fun and experiential 500-mile bicycle trip in Canada.

What’s the key to great design?
Understanding how to blend form, structure, texture and color, then realizing it has to be maintainable.

What three items would you take with you on a deserted island?
Kindling, fire starter and a net.

What has the quarantine taught you?
Life is short. Enjoy it while you can.

What’s your ideal Saturday?
Yard work and work complete, knowing a good meal is just around the corner. Temperatures in the mid-’70s. No more demands of my time until Monday!

What are you most proud of?
My children.

What is your favorite phrase, slogan?
Dead is dead (as it relates to landscaping). 

What advice would you give to someone entering the green industry?
Don’t settle. Many folks are hiring. Look for your best fit.

What is your favorite karaoke song?
John Prine “In Spite of Ourselves”

Stephanie Leveling
Client Elevation,
The Integra Group
St. Louis, Missouri

What inspired you to get into the industry?
When I went away to college, my intent was to get into finance. I wanted to be a stockbroker. I had to take a general studies class so I chose “Intro to Horticulture.” I mowed grass and would do landscape work for little old ladies around town in high school. So, I take this class and quickly learned I could make money doing the thing I had been doing. 

What’s the best part of your job?
I love helping people solve problems. Whether it was drainage issues, plant issues and now business issues, I love using my experience to help others succeed and make a difference.

What’s your favorite place you’ve ever visited?
My family took a cruise to Alaska pre-Covid. I loved the fauna and just the lifestyle of being by the water and woods all at the same time. So different than the Midwest.

What would you blow your money on?
Donating to charities, especially where animals are involved. 

What’s the biggest challenge you’ve faced professionally?
Deciding I wanted to leave the day-to-day of the industry. The industry has changed so much I felt I didn't belong anymore, but didn't know what I was qualified to do. I had never really considered looking at the industries that supported the green industry.

What’s the one thing that would make the industry better?
Having a steady labor force. We need to promote the industry as a great career to the younger generation. 

Who do you most admire in the industry?
Business owners my age (gen X). We have been through a lot—9/11, the recession, Covid. Most are embracing technology that is coming on strong.

What’s your best childhood memory?
Traveling to places with my parents. It might have been just a train ride to Chicago for a weekend or a baseball game in St. Louis, but we also traveled across the country to see things. 

Where’s your happy place?
My back deck. We live in an older neighborhood with lots of mature trees and a creek. I have messed around in my landscape for years and have finally had the time to implement the type of landscape I find appealing. 

What’s the key to great design?
Always having something going on in the garden. Either something flowering, leaves changing, plants emerging …

What has the quarantine taught you?
That we work to live, not live to work.

What’s your ideal Saturday?
Getting up and going to the farmers market, working in the yard and sitting on the deck late afternoon into the evening listening to music and having friends over.

What are you most proud of?
At the last company I worked for, when I started it was kind of the wild, wild west. I was able to implement processes and procedures that ultimately brought the bottom like up. I certainly didn't do it by myself, but was able to hire people that brought skill sets in areas that were needed. 

What is your favorite phrase, slogan?
"If you are ten minutes early, you are already five minutes late." - Vince Lombardi

What’s the best advice you have received for your career?
Don't take criticism personally. It's a job. It does not define you.

What advice would you give to someone entering the green industry?
Learn as much as you can from others. Ask for feedback and take it so you can continue to improve.

John Hart Asher
Principal/Senior Environmental Designer
Blackland Collaborative
Austin, Texas

What inspired you to get into the industry?
I worked for 11 years as part of the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center's Ecosystem Design Group. 

What’s the best part of your job?
Helping reintroduce biodiverse landscapes into cities and positively impacting human health and wellbeing, while making space for other species. We are at a point where landscape restoration isn't a nicety; it's a necessity. An opportunity to redefine our cities and landscapes from that of environmental antagonist to habitat.

What’s your favorite place you’ve ever visited?
Coastal Oregon.

What would you blow your money on?
Purchasing and conserving a remnant prairie.

What’s the biggest challenge you’ve faced professionally?
The decline of botany. People see "green" and think the landscape is healthy when many times that isn't the case.

What’s the one thing that would make the industry better?
The design community needs to understand that by incorporating ecological restoration, they are starting the landscape on a trajectory. Diverse landscapes mature and change over time much as tree saplings take decades to reach maturity. Current culture sees landscapes as quick interventions that result in instant landscapes. We need to help people understand that restorative work takes time.

What’s your best childhood memory?
Being barefoot the whole summer and catching crawdads in the creek.

Where’s your happy place?
Any grassland.

What’s the key to great design?
Understanding historic climax plant communities that once existed and the processes that drove those biodiverse landscapes on your site.

What three items would you take with you on a deserted island?
Water, plants and music.

What has the quarantine taught you?
Slow down.

What’s your ideal Saturday?
Working in my pocket prairie with my kiddos.

What are you most proud of?
Helping create landscapes that will be there long after I am gone and helping to improve the environment for future generations.

What is your favorite phrase, slogan?
The writer Bill Holm said, "The woodsman looks out at a square mile of prairie and sees only grass. The prairie person looks at a square foot and sees a universe."

What is something not many people know about you?
I was once an underwater archaeologist.

What’s the best advice you have received for your career?
Storytelling is important and listening even more so.

What advice would you give to someone entering the green industry?
Landscape design and maintenance is a key factor for addressing many of the challenges before us (global warming, species decline, heat island effect, obesity in children, water and air quality, etc.) and the industry is in a period of change. It is important that you understand how natural processes work and how you can come up with creative solutions to recreate or optimize ecosystem services. 

What is your favorite karaoke song?
“Radio Free Europe” by R.E.M.

Kate White
Director of Horticulture
Charleston Park Conservancy
Charleston, South Carolina

What inspired you to get into the industry?
Gardening and cooking with my mother and grandmother. I worked in the food and beverage industry and started growing what I was cooking. I took a job a a local garden center and eventually went back to school for horticulture.

What’s the best part of your job?
Connecting people to the landscapes around them

What’s your favorite place you’ve ever visited?
Chateau de Valmer in the Loire Valley, France.

What would you blow your money on?
A botanical garden/event space.

What’s the biggest challenge you’ve faced professionally?
The lack of understanding of horticulture in the Southeastern U.S.

What’s the one thing that would make the industry better?
“Introduction to Horticulture” in elementary and middle school.

Who do you most admire in the industry?
Karl Gercens. He continually reimagines the limits of the conservatory at Longwood [Gardens].

What’s your best childhood memory?
Traveling with my family. We explored the country (especially South Carolina, where we eventually moved). It taught me to appreciate different landscapes, people and cultures.

Where’s your happy place?
A quiet morning in the greenhouse.

What’s the key to great design?
Understanding its purpose. How and why will the the space be utilized.

What three items would you take with you on a deserted island?
Aside from the people ... coffee, seeds from my garden and my puppies.

What has the quarantine taught you?
That people can reconnect with the land and each other.

What’s your ideal Saturday?
Working in my yard with my husband and puppies.

What are you most proud of?
Creating the database of the historic camellia collection at Magnolia Plantation and Gardens.

What is your favorite phrase, slogan?
“Follow the flowers”

What is something not many people know about you?
I competed in Highland dancing as a kid.

What’s the best advice you have received for your career?
To meet as many people in the industry as possible

What advice would you give to someone entering the green industry?
To visit as many parks and gardens as possible. Meet their curators and find out why and how the landscapes were designed.

What is your favorite karaoke song?
“Son of a Preacher Man” by Dusty Springfield.

Matt Horn
Vice President,
Landart Solutions LLC
Fayetteville, North Carolina

What inspired you to get into the industry?
I started out college as a sports medicine major and got sick my first half of sophomore year. After that experience, I did not have the initiative to return to college. I had seven mowing clients in high school and thought maybe I will try working for a landscape contractor. I worked two years and enjoyed working outside and creating spaces for people to enjoy, 

What’s the best part of your job?
On the commercial installation side, I love the thrill of the hunt of the next new, challenging project. On the residential side, working with clients to create an outdoor space that they can live in.

What’s your favorite place you’ve ever visited?
Ecuador

What’s the biggest challenge you’ve faced professionally?
Finding the right employees.

What’s the one thing that would make the industry better?
Finding employees with work ethic.

What’s your best childhood memory?
Riding my 10-speed bike to York, Maine, from York, Pennsylvania. 

Where’s your happy place?
Lake Gaston, North Carolina

What’s the key to great design?
To create a space that clients want to spend time enjoying all four seasons of the year. Creating spaces with many types of features such as a ForeverLawn K9Grass area for your dog to play in, fireplace and seating area and an outdoor kitchen and bar area to enjoy with family and friends.

What are you most proud of?
My wife for taking a big leap away from her love of art and creating and growing Landart Solutions with me.

What is your favorite phrase, slogan?
Learn to sit back and observe. Not everything needs a reaction.

What’s the best advice you have received for your career?
I had a client tell me one time that it's not the name of the company that I wear on my shirt or who you work, for it's the relationship you created with me and that's why I keep coming back to you to do my work.

What advice would you give to someone entering the green industry?
Find a mentor and learn from that person. Attend green industry events to gain technical knowledge and spend time in the field learning.