OUR COMMUNITY OF PALM PEOPLE
The Personalities of the Palm World
43 topics in this forum
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Susan, originally from Connecticut, earned a BA in interior design from Pratt Institute. She came to Puerto Rico over 30 years ago as an international staff member with Citibank where she managed the branch bank and major building design and construction department. Later she moved into the bank’s financial area specializing as a trader of tax exempt CDs and marketing of banking products and account officer to local and international corporate clients. Her last position before retirement was as branch manager of the Spanish bank, Banco Central Hispano on the island of Culebra, Puerto Rico. She and her husband, Pedro Rodriguez, have a collection of over 50 palm species at …
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PalmTalk Username: tom jackson Tom has been an International Palm Society member for more than 20 years and has attended almost all biennials in that time. A native of Wisconsin, his first exposure to palms was in the conservatories of the Midwest. Visits to family and botanic gardens in Southern California got him hooked on palms. While in Medical school, an externship in a small hospital on the Mosquito Coast of Nicaragua was his first exposure to the tropics. Tom moved to San Francisco to continue his education in a more palm friendly climate. While pursuing a career in hospital based pathology and blood banking, Tom and his wife, Kathleen Grant (an MD oncologist), pu…
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JOHNSON, Ken - Director
by bgl- 7 replies
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PalmTalk Username: Ken Johnson Ken saw his first palm at six years old and “it was in my yard!” At 14, he worked in a palm nursery pulling weeds. After college Ken again worked with palms and established his own palm specialty business . . . almost 30 years ago! He writes “On the way, I found the International Palm Society. I have served 6 years as president of my local chapter and have been a previous IPS board member. I look forward to the 2014 Biennial!”
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In Memory of Dr. Jerome P. Keuper 1921-2002 MG Car Club Florida is one of the Oldest MG Clubs in the State of Florida. The club was chartered in 1956 in Jacksonville, FL. Dr.Jerry Keuper, our Club Chairman Emeritus, brought the Charter to the Brevard area a few years later. The club, under Jerry's watchful eye and his "vigorous MG enthusiasm", has had many years of great success. (Press release from Florida Tech, March 26, 2002) Dr. Jerome P. Keuper passed away last night. The following is but the tip of the iceberg of his legacy and achievements. MELBOURNE, FLA.—Dr. Jerome P. Keuper, founder and President Emeritus of Florida Institute of Technology, died af…
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PalmTalk Username: Leland Lai Leland, a resident of Topanga, California, is former Vice President of the International Palm Society and a past President of the Palm Society of Southern California. Leland also heads up the Biennial Committee for the IPS. Born and raised in Hawaii, his love for tropical flora and fauna has captivated his work and outside interests with more than a passion. Leland has built his career assisting in the development of sustainable aquaculture: producing and distributing biological and artificial larval and maturation diets, designing hatchery modules for seed stocks, and providing bio-technology in the form of aquatic genetics for selective br…
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PalmTalk Username: bgl Bo-Göran has been interested in palms ever since growing up in Sweden. He joined the IPS and the PSSC (Palm Society of Southern California) in 1991 and served as Editor of The Palm Journal in 1993-1994. He has been a Director on the IPS Board since 1994 and served as Vice President 2004-2008. In 1995, Bo-Göran and his wife Karolyn moved from the San Diego area to the Big Island of Hawai’i and acquired property in the Leilani Estates subdivision, south of Hilo. Bo-Göran planted more than 5,000 Palms on their five acres and also started up a palm nursery. After a change in his personal life, he acquired two acres elsewhere in Leilani Estates and is…
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MERRITT, Michael - Director
by bgl- 0 replies
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PalmTalk Username: Mike in Kurtistown Mike Merritt is the son of a career Air Force officer and spent a childhood moving around a lot. A major early interest was growing plants, and his non-plant family watched in tolerant bewilderment as he planted rows of flowers in various backyards. His adult work was not related to plants, however, and culminated with a 25-year career with the U. S. Geological Survey as a Research Hydrologist working at various locations in Florida. While in Miami in 1980, a USGS colleague encouraged Mike to join the International Palm Society, and he began buying plants at the palm sales at Fairchild Tropical Garden. After relocating to central F…
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MONTGOMERY, Robert H.
by bgl- 0 replies
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Robert Hiester Montgomery From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Born Sep. 21, 1872 in Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania, USA Died May 2, 1953 in Coral Gables, Florida, USA Robert Hiester Montgomery was an influential accountant and educator. He was one of the founders of what is today the world's largest accounting firm, PricewaterhouseCoopers and a two-term president of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). Montgomery was the author of numerous books on auditing and taxation including Auditing Theory and Practice, a bestseller originally published in 1912 which is still in print. He was successful in three professions despite his lack of f…
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MORGAN, Kathryn - Director
by bgl- 0 replies
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PalmTalk Username: Kathryn Kathryn Morgan is a native resident of New Orleans, Louisiana. She received a BS in Chemical Engineering from Louisiana Tech University and is a process engineer at a refinery just outside of New Orleans. Kathryn got her love of plants from her mother and bought her first palm, a Phoenix roebelenii, in 1997. At that time, there were only a few common species of palms readily available in the New Orleans area, so Kathryn began germinating seeds of the more unusual palms that caught her attention. She has been a member of the IPS since 2001 and served as President for the Louisiana Palm and Cycad Society for over ten years.
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MORICI, Carlo - Director
by bgl- 1 reply
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PalmTalk Username: Carlo Morici Carlo was born in Messina, Italy, in 1974 and has lived since 1995 in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain. He is a biologist specialized in palms and is also known for his landscaping projects. His palm research has been within the Group of Island Ecology, Department of Ecology, University of La Laguna, Tenerife. His field work has spread over various countries, but his research focuses on Phoenix canariensis and the palm flora originating in the Caribbean Islands, with a special focus on the genus Coccothrinax. In 2006, Carlo described a new palm species native to southeastern Cuba, Coccothrinax torrida, together with the Cuban …
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The chocolate, cocoa beans and coconut business has taken Paco to the Middle East and Asia for many years, introducing him to palms and their multiple uses. But his passion for all palms started when Paco became a member of the Spanish group Amigos de las Palmeras, and through them, the IPS. Since 2009, Paco is Secretary of the Spanish society ABEPYC. Travelling to the 2010 Rio Biennial, the 2011 mid-term IPS Board meeting in Tenerife, and organizing a Valencia post-tour for some of the IPS Board members after Tenerife provided Paco with the opportunity to meet other palm lovers. A group from ABEPYC went to visit Venezuela and the AVEPALMAS Venezuela Palm Society early in…
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PalmTalk Username: Noblick Larry Noblick was born in Ohio and has a B.S. in Biological Conservation (Wildlife Management), a B.S. in Education, and an M.S. in Botany from Ohio State University. He first became interested in palms while serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in Brazil (1978-80). He founded an herbarium at the Universidade Estadual de Feira de Santana (HUEFS) in Bahia, Brazil, and later returned and spent four more years developing it and continuing his studies on the palms of the Atlantic Forest Region. He came back to the U.S. in 1986 and obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1991. He then went on to complete a post-doc at Fairchil…
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ROCA, Fernando - Director
by bgl- 0 replies
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PalmTalk Username: Ceroxylon Born in Lima, Perú (1955), Fernando Roca holds a doctorate in Social Anthropology (2004) from the EHESS (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales) Paris, France and a Master in Theology (1994) from Centre Sèvres also in Paris, France. He is an ethnobotanist and Catholic priest and a member of the Society of Jesus, a religious order. He found the first population of Parajubaea cocoides in the north of Peru in 2009 Palms (Vol 54 (3) 2010, pp.133-136). After spending 15 years living in the northwest Amazonian rainforest of Peru, Fernando now lives in Lima and teaches at the University. He has been a member of the IPS since 2004. He conti…
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SAYERS, Jack - Director
by bgl- 0 replies
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PalmTalk Username: elHoagie Jack is an Astronomer at California Institute of Technology. He moved from Denver to Los Angeles in 2002. Lindsey (his wife) and Jack now have a few hundred palms growing in their garden and several hundred more coming along in containers. He has been interested in plants since childhood and even convinced Lindsey to choose their home based partially on the palm-friendly microclimate! They joined both the International Palm Society and the Palm Society of Southern California (PSSC) in 2004. In 2006, Jack became a board member for the PSSC, on which he has served continuously since that time (and on which he continues to serve.) For PSSC, Jack …
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SIMONSSON, Cecilia
by Ciczi in Sweden- 4 replies
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Forum name; Ciczi The name has been used since she was born, but the spelling came from a desire to be unique on a forum back in 1999. Discovering gardening interest back in 2004 she started small by making a small summer meadow. From this it all evolved to studying gardening and horticultural subjects at the Swedish Agricultural University (SLU) for two years. Somewhere along that road Ciczi discovered palmtrees and the fact that she lives in a town which has palmtrees as a town logotype and palms both here and there, made her do her final thesis on the subject Hardy palms for Scandinavian climate. Her fascination for palmtrees isn't so much the beauty of them …
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By William E. O'Connor This is a tale of a man, Dent Smith, who, at his premises in Daytona Beach (four acres on the Halifax River) built up a large collection of different species of palm trees. He also founded a society of palm lovers which today has a membership of over 2,000, including many in Europe, Asia, and Australia. It describes itself as "an organization devoted to the study of palms, their propagation, culture, conservation, and care and development".¹ It holds biennial conventions both in the United States and foreign points, and publishes a quarterly journal with worldwide circulation. This journal accepts articles from nursery owners and hobbiest gardene…
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SPANNER, Tobias - Director
by bgl- 4 replies
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PalmTalk Username: Toby Tobias Spanner became seriously interested in palm trees in 1987 and joined the International Palm Society soon after. In 2002, Toby was elected to the IPS’s board of directors and currently holds one of the two offices of Vice President. Toby has also been a member of the European Palm Society since its formation and served as editor of the EPS’s journal for several years. Toby is the author of Das Palmen Kulturhandbuch (1992), a handbook for growing palms, and co-author of the 320 page Winterharte Palmen (2007), which focuses on his specialization, cold-hardy palms. Additionally, Toby has published numerous articles in “Principies” (now “Palms…
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STEPHENSON, Grant - Director
by bgl- 0 replies
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PalmTalk Username: palm a grant it At age 3, Grant Stephenson began helping his grandmother tend her garden. Little did she know, she ignited in Grant a passion for plants that would one day lead him to a life in horticulture. Grant worked for several nurseries at the start of his career, but it wasn't until the early 1980's that he met Joe Montgomery, an IPS member from Austin, TX who introduced him to the world of palms--especially cold hardy species. Joe became a close friend and mentor, and he encouraged Grant to pursue his growing passion for palms and other cold-hardy yet tropical-looking plants. In the mid 1980's Grant joined the IPS and in 1993, with a vision…
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PalmTalk Username: scottzona Scott Zona is Florida International University’s Conservatory & Greenhouse Curator, a position he has held since February, 2008. Previously, he was Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden’s Palm Biologist, a position he held for 14 years. He holds a B.S. in horticulture and an M.S. in botany from the University of Florida. His Ph.D. in botany is from Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden and Claremont Graduate University, California. Scott grew up among pines and palms of Boynton Beach, Florida. He has explored for plants in Florida, California, Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, Bermuda, the Pacific islands, Indonesia, Malaysia and Madagascar. …
