Contact Information

email: froghospital911@gmail.com

cell: 360-739-0214

1105 Veronica Springs RD, Santa Barbara 93105

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Resume

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
LOVE HOUSE DAHLIAS, Ventura, CA 2010 – Present
The premier and largest grower of specialty dahlias in Southern California
Foreman
• Increase revenue by growing and selling sweet peas in off-season creating year-round income and improvements in soil management.
• Manage temporary and skilled labor crews in animal and farm management supervising 3-6 workers.
• Instruct student intern/workers in dahlia production, care of boarding horses, fence maintenance, care and use of irrigation equipment, chicken coops, greenhouses, and vegetable gardens.
• Provide strategic long range business planning in partnership with owners.
• Coordinate sales and promotion at farmers markets.
• Promote dahlia sales at dahlia society and garden club meetings.


HEDLIN FARMS, Mount Vernon, WA 2010
Farm Stand Manager
Managed the farm stand, selling organic and heirloom vegetables, fresh cut flowers, U-cut sales, harvest festival arrangements
• Under my development plan, sales increased significantly.

FREELANCE JOURNALIST AND BOOK AUTHOR, LaConner, WA 2006-2010
• Author book of humor, “Frog Hospital” and published a weekly email paid-subscription newsletter of the same name
• Wrote freelance farm stories for farm newspapers and local newspapers
WILSON COUNTY NEWS, Floresville, Texas 2005 - 2006
Farm and Ranch Editor
Wrote news and feature stories about local agriculture, including cattle auctions, livestock shows, 4H clubs, veterinarians, farriers, feed stores and mills, dairy farms, hay growers and dealers, pecan orchards, olive groves, market gardens.
* The ongoing story that year was about a punishing drought and how it adversely affected local farmers.
SOUTH LACONNER COMMUNITY GARDEN, La Connor, WA 2000 – 2004
Organizer/ Manager
Created a community garden in our neighborhood. Included clearing area, preparing soil, and providing gardening consultations
Early Horticultural Experience
FILAREE FARM, Omak, WA 1999
Harvester/Sorter
Small catalog operation garlic growers who sell 80 types of garlic seed to gardeners.
THE ZIMBABWE TREE SOCIETY and MBUKAWENI NATURE PRESERVE, Zimbabwe, Africa 1997 - 1998
Arborist/Conservationist
Under the guidance of the Zimbabwe Tree Society, a group of amateur and professional botanists, attempted eradication or limitation of alien species, promoting field knowledge of native tree species
Also

• Neil Jorgenson, Landscape Designer, Boston, MA ~ Assistant
• Arnold Arboretum, Harvard University, Boston, MA ~ Landscaper
• Lefeber Bulb Company, Skagit Valley, WA ~ Planter and Harvester, beets, daffodils, irises, tulips
• Cascadian Farm, Rockport, WA ~ innovative organic product farm ~ Laborer
• US Forest Service, North Cascades National Park area, WA – private contracted Fire Fighter



EDUCATION & TRAINING

• Western Washington University Graduates Studies in History
Bellingham, WA

• University of Toronto B.A. Psychology
Toronto, ON, Canada


• Arnold Arboretum, Harvard University, course work on conifers, rhododendrons and lilacs. Learned New England soil types, climate and flora. Supported education as landscaper.
• Neil Jorgenson, the author of New England’s Landscape hands- on training in stones, also use of maples & rhododendrons.
• New England Bamboo Society membership, and extensive hands-on seminars with Roger Geffen, a Boston-area bamboo expert.


REFERENCES:
Dave Hedlin, Hedlin Farms, Mount Vernon WA, hedlin@hedlinfarms.com, 360-466-3977
Tom Cloud, Filaree Farm, Omak, WA, tlc@filareefarm.com, 509-422-6940
Ann & Andy Dunstan, Love House Dahlias, Ventura, CA adunstan@lovehousedahlias.com, 805-648-6808
Fun Fact: I enjoy reading classical texts in Greek and Latin – Homer, Horace and the other great poets of ancient times.

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Related Experience

• Hedlin Farms, Mount Vernon, WA. Extensive organic farm. I managed the farm stand during the 2010 season. Under my development plan, sales increased significantly.

• Filaree Farm, Omak, Wash. They grow garlic which they sell for seed to gardeners. They keep 80 kinds of garlic, including many heirloom varieties. It is a small catalog operation. I worked the harvest for one week, sorting garlic in the barn.

• Arnold Arboretum (Harvard University), course work on conifers, rhododendrons and lilacs. I lived in Boston from 1991-96 and worked as a landscaper there. I became very familiar with the soil types of New England. I also learned the climate and flora of that region in a very hands-on way.

• Neil Jorgenson, the author of New England’s Landscape, had a Ph.D. in Geology, but he worked as a Landscape Designer. I worked for him in 1995-96, and learned a lot about stones, especially, but also about maples and rhododendrons.

• Membership in the New England Bamboo Society, and extensive hands-on seminars with Roger Geffen, a Boston-area bamboo expert.

• The Zimbabwe Tree Society. I lived in Zimbabwe for one year in 1997. I worked under the guidance of the Zimbabwe Tree Society, a group of amateur and professional botanists, taking field trips, learning the many types of acacias and other plants. My favorite tree was the baobab. I worked at the Mbukaweni Nature Preserve, a small park outside off Bulawayo, where we attempted to eradicate or at least limit alien species. I also grew vegetables and herbs. This was a volunteer position. I was very fortunate to have the time and the money to do this

• Farm and Ranch Editor at the Wilson County News in South Texas, 2005-6. I wrote news and feature stories about local agriculture – cattle auctions, livestock shows, 4H clubs, veterinarians, farriers, feed stores and feed mills, dairy farms, hay growers and hay dealers, pecan orchards, olive groves, market gardens, and more. The ongoing story that year was about a punishing drought and how it adversely affected local farmers.

• Several years of Farm Labor in the Skagit Valley – Pea vining, planting seed beets, harvesting daffodils and irises at Lefeber Bulb Company. Manual labor, hard work.

• Cascadian Farm, Rockport, Wash., Cascadian Farm is now a huge corporate-owned organic foods empire, but in the late 1970’s it was just a bunch of unpaid grunts with some unusual ideas – just my luck to do all that work when there wasn’t any money. Now the founder, Gene Kahn, is a multi-millionaire, but back then he packed shakes at a shake mill to supplement his farm income.

• US Forest Service. In 1970-71 I fought forest fires in North Cascades National Park and other places in the Cascades. I organized and supervised a hippy crew of firefighters known as the Marblemount Hotshots. This was one of the first private contract crews used by the Forest Service – it also helped to get a bunch of hippies at the Commune off of food stamps and back into the economy. We pressed the Forest Service to hire women as well as men – that took a while, but it happened.

• “Northwest Fishing Forecast” was a quarterly publication on the “history, culture, technology, politics and economics” of fishing in the Pacific Northwest. I wrote and published this in 1985-1986.

• Fishtown Woods, 1988. I sued the state of Washington regarding the logging of an almost old-growth forest called Fishtown Woods near the mouth of the Skagit River. It was a big controversy. I did lots of organizing work. We lost.

• South LaConner Community Garden. I organized a community garden in our neighborhood. It took a lot of work and coordination to get the blackberries and junk off the lot. Then we rototilled and planted. The yields were never high, but the education and companionship made it worthwhile.