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CT
Green Prep prepares new workers for growing industry
By Kim Colavito Markesich
This past February saw the start of a successful
new collaboration between the UConn Home and Garden Education
Center, Connecticut Nursery and Landscape Association,
and the Connecticut Greenhouse Growers Association, with
the introduction of the CT Green Prep program. “The
green industry came to us looking for introductory horticulture
classes for people who are interested or just beginning
to work in the field,” says Dawn Pettinelli, extension
educator, who coordinated the new program.
“In our most recent economic impact study, we asked those companies how
many job openings they had,” says Robert Heffernan, executive director
of the Connecticut Green Industries Council, a coalition of the Connecticut Nursery
and Landscape Association, Connecticut Greenhouse Growers Association, and Connecticut
Florists Association. “They responded with a stunning number — another
7,600 persons were needed to work in Connecticut’s green industry.”
“The Green Prep concept is designed to reach out to entry-level people
who might otherwise turn to a service-type job and interest them in starting
a career of working with plants and flowers,” Heffernan points out. “We
needed a program that would teach people who were probably never intending to
attend a college-level course, and UConn’s College of Agriculture and Natural
Resources stepped up to the plate and helped us put that together.”
The course consisted of lectures held at the UConn West Hartford branch and hands-on
sessions at three industry locations: Michael’s Greenhouse and Casertanos
Greenhouse in Cheshire and Woodland Gardens in Manchester. The $100 course tuition
included all course materials. The classes were taught by UConn instructors and
industry experts from the Connecticut Nursery and Landscape Association and the
Connecticut Greenhouse Growers Association.
A varied curriculum covered information on plant propagation, watering, fertilizing
and plant media, insects, diseases and weeds, and plant taxonomy and identification.
Students who passed quizzes given by the instructors received a certificate.
Heffernan presented an introduction to the green industry. UConn instructors
included Donna Ellis, extension educator; Julia Kuzovkina, assistant professor
of plant science; and Leanne Pundt, extension educator.
Green industry instructors opened their facilities for the classes and provided
students with an insider’s view; instructors were Linda Turner and Teri
Smith from Smith Acres; Roger McGaughey from Michael’s Greenhouses; Mike
Joy and Sue Lavalle from Casertanos Greenhouse; and Fred Hulme from Scotts Company.
“I think the course was a good entry level course,” says Smith. “There
is a void in the education offered at this time. I see this program as helping
the student who is tired of a dead-end job, looking for something different,
but who would be hesitant to knock on our doors looking for work.
“I also see this course as a way for employers and potential employees
to interact with one another,” she continues. “With the hands-on
portion of the course, the students got to see a varied array of potential job
sites. This may have helped them to decide in which spectrum of our industry
they would be interested in pursuing.”
Student reviews for this first session were very positive. One of the participants,
Henry Hull, is also taking the Master Gardener course. He said about the Green
Prep program, “The instructors both in the classroom and field work were
well qualified for the subjects that they taught. The courses were both interesting
and relevant to the overall course objectives.”
He continues, “I took the course because recently retired from business
and decided that I wanted to pursue a new career in a field that I have always
loved—gardening and care of gardens and lawns. I feel that this course
introduced me to that field in a way that really helped me to understand the
workings of those types of firms. I am very glad that I took the course.”
The next CT Green Prep course will be held in October and will focus on landscaping
and lawn care.
“This is a great example of how the College is fulfilling the Provost’s
academic plan component of workforce development,” says Mary Musgrave,
professor and head of the Department of Plant Sciences. “Dawn did a great
job pulling it together.” |
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