JC Raulston Arboretum Symposium
"Surround Yourself with Shady Characters"
September 26-28, 2008 (Friday-Sunday)
Speakers
Thomas M. Bonnicksen, Ph.D. – Professor Emeritus, Department of Forest Science, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas
Tom Bonnicksen earned a B.S. in forestry (with minors in wildlife and range management), an M.S. in forest ecology, and Ph.D. in forest policy from the University of California-Berkeley. He is professor emeritus of forest science and a former department head at Texas A&M University and research scholar in residence at California Polytechnic State University. He joined the faculty at Texas A&M University after working as a professor of forestry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His work over more than 35 years emphasizes the history and restoration of North America's forests.
Tom also is a visiting scholar and board member of the Forest Foundation in California and scientific advisor to the Temperate Forest Foundation in Oregon. He is cofounder of the International Society for Ecological Restoration and a former member of its board of directors. He also held posts as president, chair, and vice-chair of several other organizations, including the Bay Area Chapter of the Sierra Club and the Southwest Wisconsin Chapter of the Society of American Foresters. Tom is also a U.S. Navy veteran and former U.S. National Park Service ranger.
Tom has received many awards. The Bush Presidential Library Foundation honored him in 2002 with the Bush Excellence in Public Service Award. He is the first recipient. President George H. W. Bush personally presented him the award. Most recently, the California Forestry Association honored him as Citizen Conservationist of the Year in 2004.
Tom developed science-based strategies in 1994 and 1995 to deal with the wildfire threat in San Bernardino Mountain forests and San Diego County brushlands of California. These strategies, developed with the help of state and federal agencies, and community leaders, would have dramatically reduced the death and destruction caused by the fires of 2003 and 2007 in Southern California.
Most recently, Tom created the Forest Carbon and Emissions Model (FCEM), which is a Rapid Assessment Model (REM) that quickly estimates forest carbon and emissions using a minimum of input data for wildfires, insect infestations, and inventories of existing and sequestered carbon on forestlands and brushlands. FCEM is especially important for dealing with issues associated with global climate change. FCEM provided critical information for Tom’s testimony to the California-Nevada Tahoe Basin Fire Commission, which provided the basis for several Commission recommendations.
Governor Ronald Reagan appointed Tom to serve four years as a member of the California State Park and Recreation Commission. While serving on the commission, he wrote the legislation for State Senator Anthony C. Beilenson (SB 271 & 272) that guides the classification and management of California's state park system. Most recently, he developed the concept and drafted legislation to create a system of national historic forests. Congressman Mike Simpson (2nd District of Idaho) introduced the Act (H.R. 2119) and held Congressional hearings in June 2001.
Tom testified before U. S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate committees 13 times, as well as seven Congressional and Secretarial briefings. He also served on several Congressional fact-finding missions, including the Yellowstone fires of 1988 and the Southern California wildfires of 2003. In addition, he served on many Congressional and state advisory committees, and mostly recently, as a member of the U.S. Senate’s California Forest EIS Review Committee and the U. S. House of Representatives’ Forest Health Science Panel.
Tom published over 120 scientific and technical papers, articles, book chapters, and other publications, nine computer programs, and four multimedia CDs. He also published a book with John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (Copyright 2000, 594 pages), titled America's Ancient Forests: from the Ice Age to the Age of Discovery. The book documents the 18,000-year history of North America’s native forests. It includes the role of Native Americans in the development of these forests and descriptions by explorers who saw them first. In addition, Tom is widely quoted in the media and he published numerous editorials for national, regional, and local newspapers throughout the United States.
Tom delivered over 100 presentations and keynote addresses worldwide, including the Cosmos Club in Washington, DC, the Commonwealth Club and the Bohemian Club in California, the Western Governors Conference, the National Arbor Day Foundation, the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency Board, and others. He also helped produce and appeared in a one-hour PBS television special titled Forest Wars as well as educational videos. In addition, Tom appeared on Fox, NPR, CSPAN, PBS, CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC, and other regional and national television and radio programs.
William Cullina – Curator, Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens, Boothbay, Maine
William Cullina (kul-EYE-nuh) holds degrees in plant science and psychology and has been working in plant propagation and nursery production for over twenty years. In 1995 he became nursery manager and propagator (now director of horticultural research) at the New England Wild Flower Society's Garden in the Woods and Nasami Farm – now the largest retail native plant nursery in New England with locations in Framingham and Whately, Massachussetts. A nationally recognized speaker, writer, and expert on native plants, Bill lectures extensively to garden and professional groups and writes frequently for popular and technical journals. His first book, The New England Wild Flower Society Guide to Growing and Propagating Wildflowers of the United States and Canada, was published by Houghton Mifflin in 2000. A follow up volume: Native Trees, Shrubs, and Vines - a guide to using, growing and propagating North American woody plants was published in June, 2002. Understanding Orchids was published in November, 2004, and work a third volume in the natives series on grasses, ferns, and mosses will be published in February 2008. Understanding Perennials – a book about everything you ever wanted to know about perennials but were afraid to ask – is in progress now. He and his wife, Melissa live with their five year old son Liam and infant twins Ronan and Maeve on six wooded and wonderful acres in Woodstock, Connecticut.
Dave Demers – Horticulturist, Plant Explorer, and Owner of CYAN Horticulture, Vancouver, British Columbia
Dave Demers is a young but experienced horticulturist born, raised, and trained in Québec, Canada. Since fond memories include tending his mom's hollyhocks and picking berries on his grandparents' farm, there is no doubting that gardening is Dave's second nature. Following a few highly formative years of work home and overseas as well as serious travelling on the back roads across many continents, Dave settled in Vancouver, on the west coast of Canada. His passion is said to be contagious and his energy, inexhaustible! In addition to owning and operating CYAN Horticulture, a landscape design and consultation firm in Vancouver, Canada, Dave is a photographer, garden writer, and lecturer.
John Grimshaw, D.Phil. – Garden Manager, Colesbourne Gardens, Sycamore Cottage, Colesbourne, England
John Grimshaw has been interested in plants all his life, as both gardener and botanist. He holds a first class degree in botany and doctorate in African forest ecology from Oxford University. African plants remain his principal botanical interest. He is, however, fascinated by all plants and will attempt to grow anything in the garden. The origins of garden plants are a particular fascination and he has travelled widely to see plants growing in habitat. His first book was The Gardener' Atlas (1998), recounting the journeys plants have made from their source to our gardens.
Having worked in the Netherlands for the seed company K. Sahin, Zaden. B.V., where he was responsible for developing perennials for the seed trade, he is currently gardens manager at Colesbourne Park, Gloucestershire. There, he is responsible for maintaining and developing the historic Elwes family garden, especially the snowdrop collection. He is co-author of the monograph Snowdrops (2002) by Matt Bishop, Aaron Davis, and John Grimshaw, published by his own publishing company, Griffin Press. Since 2004, he has been working on a major book on trees introduced in the past 35 years, entitled New Trees, sponsored by the International Dendrology Society, which will be published by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in 2009. He is a research associate at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and an honorary elder of the Masai community of Lerang’wa, Tanzania.
Sean B. Hogan – Co-owner, Cistus Nursery, Suavie Island, Oregon
Sean B. Hogan started in the nursery industry at the age of three, rooting boxwood cuttings and succulents in the sandbox of his boyhood home in Portland Oregon. His family later moved to Sacramento where he pursued his education at American River College and Sacramento State in the areas of horticulture and botany. Early work included mapping rare and endangered plants, mostly Cactaceae and Portulacaceae, for the State of California as well as landscape and design work often revolving around his love of western natives.
From the mid-80s to the mid-90s, Sean served as curator of the South African, New Zealand, Australian, New Work Desert, and the California Native Cultivar Gardens of the University of California, Berkeley, Botanic Garden.
In 1995, he and his partner, University of California Davis Arboretum botanist Parker Sanders, returned to Sean's native Portland, starting a design and consultation firm specializing in regionally appropriate plants for the Pacific Northwest. This work eventually evolved into the opening of Cistus Design and Nursery, located outside Portland on Sauvie Island in the Columbia River and widely held to be among the best of the West Coast retail micro-nurseries.
Sean has lectured extensively in North America and Europe, often about his explorations in South America, South Africa, and the western regions of the United States and northern Mexico. His writing and photographs can be found in a wide range of horticultural and botanical literature and magazines. He edited the 20,000 plus entry Flora, published by Timber Press in October 2003, and has just completed work on his book, Trees for All Seasons: Broadleaved Evergreens for Temperate Climates, to be available from Timber Press in the autumn of 2008.
Richard T. Olsen, Ph.D. – Research Geneticist, The United States National Arboretum, Washington, D. C.
Richard Olsen, Ph.D., is a research geneticist with the USDA-Agricultural Research Service in the Floral and Nursery Plant Research Unit at the U.S. National Arboretum. Richard leads the urban tree breeding program whose past introductions include Dutch elm disease-tolerant American and hybrid elms, as well as improved cultivars of red maple, London plane, and magnolias. Research continues to focus on genetics, breeding, and selection of superior landscape trees with improved resistance to major pests and pathogens, and abiotic stresses, particularly trees for planting in restricted spaces in urban environments. Emphasis placed on underutilized genera, exploring interspecific and intergeneric crossing barriers, developing non-invasive cultivars, and limiting introgression of genes from non-native to native species. Current genera of interest include: Acer, Catalpa, Celtis, Halesia, Nyssa, Tsuga, and Ulmus. Richard has a bachelor degree in landscape design (B.S., NC State University, 1998), a master degree in horticulture (M.S., University of Georgia, 2001) and a doctorate in horticultural science (Ph.D. NC State University, 2006).
Larry Stanley – President, Stanley and Sons Nursery, Boring, Oregon
Larry Stanley is the owner and president of Stanley and Sons Nursery, Inc. At present, the nursery is located on 10 acres in Boring, Oregon and was started in 1976. Currently, the nursery ships all over the US, Canada, Japan, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. We also import plants from New Zealand and Europe. The nursery specializes in 425 varieties of Japanese maples, and 3,000 varieties of conifers. At the nursery, 90,000 plants are grafted a year and 350,000 plants are done by cuttings. Larry is a past president of the American Conifer Society, also past president of the Western Region of the ACS for two terms and is one of the ten people that planed, donated material, and built the conifer garden in The Oregon Garden. He also helped with material for the Chinese garden in Portland. Larry attended Mt. Hood Community College in horticulture. He has worked in the nursery business for over 30 years as an avid plant collector and has visited Europe and New Zealand on plant missions. Larry's nursery includes a one acre display garden with 3,000 plants. According to Larry, his favorite plant is the one he has not seen yet.