good morning, welcome to our fourth annualhorticulture sciences day. as always we are delighted to have you here and thank you allfor coming today. it is a beautiful day outside but you chose to be here. so thank you. iam lekha sreedhar, i am the chair of the horticulture sciences program here at johnson county communitycollege and before i get started with today's program please allow me to introduce to youour president, dr. joseph sopcich to welcome you all. we are indeed pleased and honoredthat dr. sopcich accepted our invitation to be here today. thank you lekha, or i shouldsay dr, sreedhar, correct? um my name is joe sopcich i am the president here at johnsoncounty community college i would like to welcome all of you to our campus. now how many ofyou are high school students? raise your hands.
so we made all of the high school studentssit in this section apparently right? well i would like to welcome all of you to ourcampus. what you may not know about johnson county community college is that there areabout twelve hundred community college in the country. this community college is consideredone of the very best. so we would like to welcome you to this facility and i have tosay that our horticulture program under dr. sreedhar's guidance is among one of the topsin the country which is really pretty cool with all kinds of opportunities for student's.now before i get started i am just going to ask you a few questions. for example, youyou are so immersed in the - it is good to know somebody reads our materials. okay sowhat high school are you from? olathe north,
what about you? olathe north. whats your name?mario, michael, olathe north. is anybody here not from olathe north? really, where are youfrom? olathe north, boy i think olathe north is a good area here. olathe north, ahh i loveolathe north. what about you , olathe north, you know its great everybody looks down wheni walk toward them you aen't looking up. olathe north. good answer, okay i have got one foryou. sir where are you from? from uganda, uganda! we have with us today ronald reaganokumu who is a member of parliament and leader in the country of uganda, specifically thegulu region which is northern uganda. and he is here today doing some very importantprojects. so reagan thank you very much for joining us. i think you get the award forthe person who came the greatest distance
for this seminar. i can assure you that youcan go to any program in the kansas city region today and you are not going to find a programthat has a visitor or a member for parliament for uganda. this program that you are a partof, lekha gave me a few talking points and when she sends, normally when you get talkingpoints you get three talking points. lekha sent me twenty three talking points on twopages. which gives you some idea of the amount of preparation that went into this but someof the key things here is that there are one hundred and fifty students in this program.there is two plus two opportunities with k-state university which means you go here for twoyears and then you can go to k-state and get a degree. in fact we have numerous adjunctsfrom the k-state faculty working with this
program. so that provides kind of the generaloverview. one of the most important things about all of our programs here on campus isthat we have advisory committee's and these advisory committee's consist of professionalsout in the field. we have one of those with us today, mr. dalton hermes, dalton. if youhave heard of hermes landscaping which is one of the biggest i guess horticultural enterprisesin the midwest, dalton runs that and so it is a great opportunity in the private sectorto make their living doing the things that we teach here. so with the - oh the otherthing that you might be interested in knowing is that according to our surveys when ourpeople graduate they start at about twenty dollars an hour. and that is a pretty gooddeal right out of school. so at the end of
the day we all know how important horticultureis, especially horticulture in an urban environment. because we live with that and you know thereis all kinds of scientific reasons that we like plants and things like that but ultimatelythey make us feel good because we like being around green things. and we like being aroundnature and so the challenge is how can we use science and how can we make, how can wedo all of that, that ultimately benefits all of us. so i would like to welcome you alltoday. i hope that sometime during your time here at the college you are going to go upto somebody, lekha, mr. hermes and ask just one question. can you challenge yourself toask one question because none of us can learn unless we ask questions. and you have someauthorities here that will have some great
answers here so enjoy the day, have a greatone, i will tell you that even though it might be beautiful outside, it is much better insideat this seminar. so thank you very much. now i would like to invite dr. hermes who likedr. sopcich mentioned he is ceo of hermes landscaping one of the largest landscapingcompanies in kansas, he is also a member of jccc's foundation board and he is a horticulturalscience advisory board as well. and today he is going to share his reflections on theindustry with all of you. thank you. thank you it is nice to be with all of you. firstof all i would like to share with you that i have been a member of this community atjohnson county community college for years and i have known dr. sopcich for most of thosewhich is at least a dozen years, i was on
the foundation bard here in the executivecommittee and i will tell you that joe a grand tradition of university presidents and collegepresidents here and i will also tell you that this college is in good hands with joe. heis really a talented guy and he cares a ton. he hares allot so joe congratulations i haven'tformally told you for your new position. and also i want to tell, share an observationwith you from the industry. when joe talks about this college being in the top of thenation, it is really kind of an understatement because what i understand to be the truthis something like in the top five community colleges in this nation which probably meansas the world goes it might be the top five in the world because the us does communitycolleges like no other country and so you
are here and we are here sitting in what ibelieve is a top five community college in the world. and within that, within this universitywe have this horticulture program which is led by dr. lekha sreedhar which is reallyan incredible jewel for us an an industry, for us as students, um it is a gold mine.it is a literal gold mine for this to be situated right here at least for industry to have thishorticulture program at this school. and we we as an industry and i know i am not talkingabout allot of industry people here today but we as an industry have an obligation tohelp grow it and i was telling dr. sreedhar this morning is it doesn't happen all on hershoulders like when we educate children it is always a cooperative effort between theparent and the teacher and the student. and
i think about the program here as a cooperativeeffort between the college and dr. lekha and the students and in the industry so i am reallyhappy to be participating as much as we do i am really happy to see these students fromolathe north here and i will tell you that i grew, i am a second generation businessowner and the company was started in 1965 by my dad and i started working there at agefive and that would tell you how old i am if you are quick with math but i love it.i love this industry, i love what i do, i have loved it every day, i have worked init since i was aged five, i went away to college i came back and took over this company twentyeight years ago. and have been running it for that amount of time and every day i amgrateful that i get to get up and create beauty
and make a difference in people lives andmake people happy. create memories for people, create connection for people, and you cando all of that in the framework of mother nature. so it is really a beautiful industryfor all of us to be in. i guess i hadn't thought, i have been asked over the years to go upto k-state and speak to the students there and there is always, i mean the talk i havei am going to make really succinct here but i just want to tell any of you who are studentsthe things i share at k-state and this is for the high school students as well, thehorticulture is really important if you want to get into the industry but also if i couldoffer three other area's of study to supplement your horticulture to make you really usefulin this industry it would be accounting, it
would panish, and it would be people skills.learning how to work with people manage people, motivate people, lead people. so i would justsay in our industry to add those to whatever your curriculum is and actually i have saidthis with the advisory committee too over the years. it would be nice to work thosesubjects into the curriculum here. i want to share with you four things here that ihave learned in business. these are kind of life lessons and life has a beautiful wayof teaching us if we are aware of the lessons we are being taught and these aren't the lessonsmaybe you get from being in school but these are lessons that sometimes are sweet lessons,sometimes aren't so sweet lessons but they are there. they are profound and probablythe best lessons we learn in life are the
ones we learn that aren't pure coded, theones that come kind of hard. first thing i have learned is what you do matters. whatyou do every day matters and what you do in this industry matters and for us as industry,for us as students to reach forward and do the things everyday in this industry thatlift, that inspire, that are truth, that are integrity, and in that vein, that expression,all boats float with the rising tide so you can't we as an industry can't but help ourselvesif we help the industry grow. so whether that is in your school, every little thing thatwe do in our school matters. and whether we lift people up it maters. we tear people down,it matters and it affects us all. in that regard we really are, we are all one, we areall one everything we do affects other people.
the second thing we have learned is the begrateful or whatever comes our way and life has some incredible lessons for us and thereis miracles that happen every day if we are looking for them in business and in life andour families and our churches and our communities the miracles happen. and the more gratefulwe are, the greater are the gifts that come our way. the third thing i have learned isthat to be successful, it takes hard work. but more than hard work it takes being ableto see success, being able to want the success and being able to believe in the success.and all of those things happen without the work and they all start in the heart and theyall start in the mind of seeing it and wanting it and believing it, and the last thing iwill tell you that i have learned is that
you matter. you matter, and everything, thereis only one you there is only one me, we came into this world whether you came bearing gifts.bearing our gifts, our skills, our talents, our dreams, our visions and nobody else hasit. nobody else has the gift of you. and it doesn't benefit the world to play small. sowhatever your gifts are that you have and you bring to life, you bring to business,you bring it to school, you bring it to your family. to yourself, play it big and i havelearned that. so those are the four things i have learned and then the last item i wouldlike to share with you is just what i see as the future of this industry and some ofthe opportunities that are there but i will tell you i have been around the country allotand seen the horticulture industry in other
parts of the country. there are certain placeswhere the horticulture industry is so far advanced from where we are in kansas and placeswhere it not as advanced. it is not a criticism, it is just a statement that there is a tremendousopportunity for us as high school students and college students and professor and industrypeople to make a difference and i would encourage all of us to see what is happening in otherparts of the county and how industries, what are the decisions that have been made to elevatethe industries in other parts of the country. there are some great models to follow, illinoisis one of them. colorado is one of them and then the last thing just in terms of the futurei think generally speaking i don't believe that there has been a tremendous amount ofinnovation in our industry in the last fifty
years probably, the thirty years i have been,or twenty right years i have been running this company, things haven't changed allotin my opinion. i think the public, i think businesses, i think consumers are ready tosee change coming from this industry and i see such amazing talent and creativity amongyoung people that are coming up right now that are going to bring some amazing idea'sand innovations to this industry. and when that happens that is what creates opportunity,that is what creates wealth, that is what creates great businesses. that is what applewas all about. it was all about innovation and so i just want to encourage all of youwho are student's and going through whether it is horticulture or another field, the bigopportunities lie in innovation and industry
needs it. and our industry needs you so ihope that there will be some of you that fall in love with what we have got here becauseit is really special so thank you. i promise i won't take too long okay so i'll keep itreally short and sweet. so anyway thank you dr. sopcich, thank you dr. dalton and as dr.sopcich and dalton mentioned we have a commendable horticulture and sciences program at johnsoncounty coming to to college. and our program has done well because of the collective progressivethinking, determination, and hard work of all of the horticulture sciences we have thirteenadjunct faculty teaching in the program. staff we have a green house manager and of coursestrong support from our industry partners like dalton, suburban family tree, we haveallot of local industry support as well. kansas
state university and of course you the communityas well. so thank you all. a big thank you. our theme for today workshop is urban horticultureand pest management and urban horticulture as you all know is gaining more and more attentionas raleigh of green spaces. environmental and human health are being explored in additionto the aesthetic value. as you know plants are key in the long term sustainability inurban landscapes and our planet. it is also important that we understand and appreciatethe inter connectivity of the plants and people of the modern urban environment. and todaywe will discuss a wide range of topics from pest management philosophy and practices inurban environments to pollinated protection to growing vegetables foods and nuts in urbanlandscapes. and of course creative landscape
solutions for small garden spaces and muchmore. and such conversations i hope will serve as a catalyst for more discussions that willultimately lead to greener cities and landscapes with management practices that are ecologicallyand socially sustainable. and this year we have also planned to see this hands on workshopsfor you and that will be tomorrow at the horticultural science center. if you have not signed forthat please do so. you can sign online or at the front desk. we also have some prominentvisitors like dr. sopcich mentioned, welcome to honorable reagan okumo from uganda, alsodr. david samrosky who is in the audience as well, thank you. and we have our sciencedivision dean at the audience at the back dr. sheilah denisky. thank you sheilah foryour support of the program thank you for
being here today. and i am not sure if i missedanybody, so yeah so high school students from olathe north thank you for being here, minithank you for bringing them here. and mini is part of a high school college program,she is a teacher for the high school college program so she took the initiative to bringthem here so thank you much yeah. and um so before i talk about next years theme let methank a few of our sponsors as well from jccc we have our office of instruction, studentlife, marketing and communication and kansas studies institute they were our sponsors,and from the green industry we have hermes landscaping, ryan lawn and tree, suburbanlawn and garden, family tree and lomavista, so thank you for your support, also thankyou to deb kanitzen, i am not sure if she
is here today, she is downstairs she is theevening planning and she does all of the planning for this evening so big thank you to her andof course adrian wilson she is the director of the founding office she is in leathersout requesting sponsorship so a big thank you to her as well. next year we will continuethese conversations and i am hoping next years theme will revolve around resource managementmeaning resource management meaning water conserving, plants, disease resistant plants,pest resistant plants, we will continue those conversions and if you have solutions in wateran appropriate theme would be email that to me like a title for a theme email that tome.
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