Creative Environmental Careers Anyone?

Posted in Learning Experiences, Programs and Events on January 22 2009, by Plant Talk

Jeff Downing is Vice President for Education.

In the past year the Garden has developed a number of training programs in conjunction with the New York City Parks Department to help increase the pool of capable job candidates. First, the Garden’s Horticulture and Education divisions collaborated on an urban tree care course to train a new generation of Parks foresters. Next, the Garden designed a special course for the Parks Opportunity Program, which trains local career-seekers in the fundamental skills necessary for the numerous vacant horticulture positions at the Parks Department and elsewhere. Recently, the Garden devised yet another program, one that is training 30 competitively selected 18–24-year-olds to help facilitate Mayor Bloomberg’s Million Trees Initiative.

The common thread in all of these wonderful initiatives is opportunity: Even in uncertain economic times the field of horticulture offers a wealth of career prospects for those willing to learn the required professional skills. And the opportunities are not just in New York City but throughout the region and beyond.

It has hit me that we at the Garden need to do a better job of spreading the word about the multitude of horticulture-related career tracks—from propagation and plant care to arboriculture, landscape and garden design, and horticultural therapy (using plants in therapeutic settings). So in the fall, the Garden’s Continuing Education program organized a couple of free Career Information Sessions and asked recent Continuing Ed certificate recipients to come and discuss their experience in the Garden’s education program and how it helped them get started in a new career.

Landscape Design graduate Robert Welsch talked about his burgeoning business, Westover Landscape Design, in Westchester. Sheri Forster explained how the Horticulture certificate she earned just this past spring allowed her to jumpstart a thriving business of her own, The Scottish Gardener, in Manhattan. Other former students and program instructors rounded out the evenings, giving their own unscripted and unedited appraisals of the business of horticulture and the Garden’s education programs. The give and take was free flowing, and those who came asked all the questions I would want to know if I were thinking about a new career such as:

• If I invest the time and money to learn these skills, will there really be career opportunities available when I complete a certificate?
• Do the Garden’s certificate programs provide all the knowledge and skills needed to really do this?
• Do I have to commit to a whole program before I really know whether this is for me, or can I start with a short introductory class and see how it goes?

If you missed these informative sessions but are interested in learning the answers to these questions (and any others) about careers in horticulture and landscape design, we’ve arranged to do the whole thing again, with a new group of students and instructors. So mark your calendar for Wednesday, January 28, from 6 to 8 p.m. and pre-register to attend our free Career Information Session.

I hope to see you there!