Lanny Neel, your Garden Director is originally from Pennsylvania. He grew up and was educated in California.

He attended Fresno State College and earned a BS Degree in Ornamental Horticulture. He attended graduate school at the University of California at Davis under a 4 year fellowship from the then International Shade Tree Conference (now the International Society of Arboriculture). He received an MS and PhD Degree in Botany respectively. His dissertation was titled Factors Affecting the Growth and Development of Shade Tree Trunks. Subsequently revised recommendations for tree staking/support issued by the California Agriculture Extension Service were based on a significant portion of Dr. Neel's research.

Dr. Neel accepted a position in 1971 with the University of Florida Agriculture Research Center at Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where he did research on plant production problems encountered by tropical plant nurseries.

In 1978 Lanny joined the staff of a tropical foliage plant nursery in Palm Beach County, where he built foliage plant shade houses; propagated and grew tropical foliage plants; planned, staffed, and managed a plant tissue culture laboratory; prepared bids for landscaping contracts; supervised landscape installations; and developed a field nursery for landscape plants.

Lanny accepted a teaching position at the University of Wisconsin at River Falls in the Plant and Earth Science Department. He regularly taught horticulture majors courses in Plant Science, Plant Propagation, Plant Interiorscaping, Landscaping Principles, Woody Ornamental Plants, Plant Tissue Culture, Nursery Management and Arboriculture, and Senior Seminar. For six summers he participated in 3 week long biotechnology workshops for high school teachers, during which he gave lectures and did labs on plant tissue culture and plant biotechnology.

Dr. Neel also provided basic outreach courses for community residents interested in plant propagation and home landscaping from time to time, as well as being a "College for Kids" professor for advanced third through sixth grade students during several summers. Dr. Neel participated in a 2 week long Geology field trip to Hawaii in 1996, and fell in love with Hawaii during that time. He and his wife Joni returned to Hawaii the next summer and bought a time share on the Big Island.

During one of their visits Lanny visited the Gardens with some friends and filled out a comment card. Later, he was contacted about ownership possibilities and he bought a couple of shares. He attended several shareholder meetings at the Gardens, and when the opportunity arose to become a member of the Board of Directors, he submitted his resume and was subsequently elected to the Board.

In April, 2004, the opportunity to become the new/second Garden Director arose, and Dr. Neel decided to accept the challenge. He had to retire from his 22 years of service as Professor of Horticulture at the UW-River Falls and sell his home and move to Hawaii in 3 months, to begin his new venture as Garden Director on July 15, 2004. When the Visitor Center becomes a reality, one of the things Dr. Neel wants to do is to provide special interest classes for residents as well as tourists about the plants and fruits and flowers in the Gardens. He and his wife are enjoying their time in Hawaii, but being employed on the Island is quite a bit different than being a vacationing tourist. You can read about his activities since then in our News page (click here).

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