22 GPN January 2008 www.gpnmag.com

When 22-year-old Eric Pitzen was in fourth grade, his perennial-loving grandmother asked him to take one of her purple petunias home and take good

care of it. Although Pitzen, who grew up in a farm in north central Iowa and has fond memo-ries of “family time in the vegetable garden,” says that agriculture has always been part of his life, it was that summer — and that petunia — that really sparked his interest in growing. As the 2007 recipient of the GPN/Nexus Intern Scholar-ship, it’s Pitzen’s passion for the fi eld, carefully nurtured throughout the years, that has fueled his early success and future aspirations: “The change. The beauty in it, looking at the vibrant colors,” he says. “This is my passion. When I’m out gardening, nothing else matters. Everything is lifted off my shoulders.”

A Roadmap to SuccessWith only one semester to go before gradu-

ating from Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa, with a degree in horticulture and a specializa-tion option in greenhouse production and man-agement, Pitzen already has four internships under his belt, giving him a unique understanding of the many different facets of the industry. After an inspiring visit with his aca-demic adviser the summer before his freshman year, Pitzen recog-nized the value of gaining as much real-world experience as he possibly could during his college years. Soon after, he compiled an ambitious class schedule for his undergrad-uate career that would allow him to complete two extended internships during what would have been his senior year. It meant he would have to take an extra year to graduate, but he would learn more than what a classroom could offer. His determi-nation never wavered, Pitzen says. “It’s kind of like a roadmap. You set these goals, and you follow them.”

Finding his niche. The fi rst stop on that map was an internship with Plantpeddler in Cresco, Iowa, after his freshman year of college. He spent the majority of his time at Plantpeddler working as a trial gardens groundskeeper and helping out in the greenhouse. Before the internship, Pitzen says, he didn’t have a clear idea of exactly what vegetative annuals were, but by the sum-mer’s end, he had found his niche. “That’s where I really fell in love with [the vegetative annual market]. I knew this was going to be my venue in the industry.” Pitzen describes a colorful, hot trial day in July as the highlight of his internship. “Seeing everything in bloom,” the expressions on people’s faces as they perused the different trials, and being trusted to answer customers’ questions gave him a sense of accomplishment after a summer of hard work.

Basics of breeding. The following summer, he experienced a different side of the industry through a production research internship with Ball Horticultural in West Chicago, Ill., with what used to be Ball FloraPlant. He learned the basics of how a breeding company conducts its research and development with new and exciting

The GPN/Nexus Intern Scholarship

Recognizing the importance of

perpetuating and growing our industry,

GPN and Nexus Corporation partnered

to offer a scholarship to a horticulture stu-

dent who has made the commitment to

this industry by undertaking an intern-

ship. Now in its 10th year, the GPN/

Nexus Intern Scholarship has acknowl-

edged students across the country who

have gone on to work at some of the best-

respected greenhouses in the industry.

Do you know a student who just completed an intern-

ship and deserves recognition and a cash reward? If

you do, contact GPN Editorial Director Tim Hodson at

thodson@sgcmail.com for more information on the GPN/

Nexus scholarship program.

By Darhiana Mateo

Armed with four diverse internships

under his belt and an unwavering

zeal for the fi eld, the 2007 winner of

the GPN/Nexus Intern Scholarship

isn’t just ready to join the industry.

He’s poised to help revolutionize it.

Eric Pitzen, winner of the 2007 GPN/Nexus Intern Scholarship, has a unique understanding of the “big picture” of horticulture. (All photos: Robert Elbert, Iowa State University)

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products amid a fast-paced, fast-changing fi eld. He also “networked like crazy,” even attending the OFA — An Association of Flo-riculture Professionals — Short Course in Columbus, Ohio. After leaving Ball, “I had a really good understanding of how the industry conducts business and runs smoothly through each season,” he wrote in his winning essay.

Thriving under pressure. Next on his roadmap was an extended intern-ship with C. Raker & Sons in Litch-fi eld, Mich., during the summer and fall of 2006. During this third intern-ship, he got to test his initial interest in a career as a vegetative young plant specialist. Raker’s was going through staffi ng changes at the time, and Pitzen jumped at the opportunity to take over the interim grower position, in charge of the propagation area, until the company found a permanent, full-time grower. The level of responsibility thrown at him after only three weeks into the internship was phenomenal, Pitzen says. “I learned so much about culture, how things shouldn’t be done on a trial and error basis, and how they should be done. They gave me free rein.”

Seeing the big picture. While networking at Short Course, Pitzen was introduced to the head of the intern program at Tagawa Green-houses Enterprises in Brighton, Colo. That chat led to his last and most recent internship: a six-month Vic and Margaret Ball Internship at Tagawa Greenhouses during the spring and summer of 2007.

The intern program lets students partici-pate in all aspects of the business, including seeding, production, inventory, quality con-trol and even marketing, says Bill Kluth, vice president of business and technology operations at Tagawa, who served as Pitzen’s mentor throughout the internship. “He got an opportunity to experience everything that we do here.” Pitzen has a promising future ahead, says Kluth, who describes him as “very bright, very eager, very capable and very interested in the greenhouse business.” It’s always exciting to see a young person who wants to join the fi eld, Kluth says.

Pitzen recalls that his fi rst duty at Tagawa’s was the tough, dirty job of bagging, remixing and sampling soil. Although at fi rst he ques-tioned why — given his experiences and college education — they had him “doing manual labor,” he quickly answered his own question. “You need to learn every job in the greenhouse to be able to make manage-rial decisions,” he says. His time at Tagawa really drilled home how the different parts of the industry merge together to operate effi -ciently. “One thing slows everything down.

It’s a snowball effect,” he says. “All key com-ponents need to be hitting on all cylinders to have the business run smoothly.”

A Cutting-Edge CareerWhile Pitzen’s extensive internship expe-

rience throughout the country helped him grasp the big picture of the industry, it also helped him narrow down what segment he might thrive best in. For Pitzen, that would be the “cutting-edge” area of new-product devel-opment and breeder relations in the vegeta-tive plant market. “The constant change really grabs my attention,” he says. “I really liked that it was the cutting-edge stuff, the new stuff, stuff that had not come out in the market yet.”

This area also would give him the oppor-tunity to take advantage of another strong asset — his communication skills — by serving as a liaison between consumers and industry members.

Pitzen says that he is grateful for the oppor-tunity to have held such diverse internships and credits them for giving him the direction he needed as he prepares to enter the industry. “Different doors opened for me that kept leading me to where I want to go after school,” he says. “Growing could be a possibility, but the better fi t for me right now is new-product development and breeder relations.”

Leading the Transition From Art to Science

With his thirst for challenge, passion and strong work ethic, Pitzen doesn’t plan on simply joining the industry once he graduates. ➧

Making the Grade As much as he values the outside education

he’s received from his four internships, Pitzen

also understands the value of a solid academic

record. “I’ve been active

in and out of school,”

he says. Besides main-

taining a strong 3.23

GPA, Pitzen also dis-

tinguished himself as a

leader in his college. He

served as the horticul-

ture department’s junior

representative on the

agriculture council of the

College of Agriculture

and vice president of

the Horticulture Club his

sophomore to junior year,

among other leadership

roles in the Horticulture

Club’s sales projects.

Pitzen participated in four internships while maintaining a strong GPA.

He wants to help revolutionize it. One way he hopes to emerge as a leader is by tack-ling the vegetative plant market, which he believes is still in its infancy when com-pared to the more established fi eld of seed-plug production. “I want to be one of the people to help change it from an art to a sci-ence,” Pitzen says. “This is where the inter-face between my classes and my internships will be able to help me be one of the people to help develop the vegetative market.”

Feeding the FutureEmerging young leaders such as Pitzen,

who have demonstrated a commitment to propelling the industry forward during these challenging times, deserve to be recognized. The future of the fi eld depends on the youth, says Cheryl Longtin, chairman and CEO of Nexus Corporation. “The only way we really succeed is if we feed our future generation,” she says. The intern scholarship gives young students a “peer role model” that they can relate to and aspire to emulate, Longtin adds.

Pitzen couldn’t agree more. He says that during his fi rst talk with academic adviser Dr. Richard Gladon, whom he describes as the greatest mentor of his college career, he learned that a past Iowa State University grad-uate had just won the GPN/Nexus award. “I thought it was the neatest thing,” he says. “I set my goal from that day that I was going to win this award. This is a huge satisfaction.”

Students like Pitzen, who aren’t afraid to set high goals for themselves and work hard to see those goals fulfi lled, “give me great hope for the future of the industry,” Gladon says. He says every new semester, he wel-comes students with the following advice and charge: “You must not react to change. You must initiate it. Don’t just think inside the box,” he says. “Look at things and say, ‘Why not? Why can’t we do it this way?’ Eric listened to that approach.”

The broad experiences that Pitzen has gleaned from his internships have armed him with a unique perspective, says Gladon. In a recommendation letter on Pitzen’s behalf for the GPN/Nexus Intern Scholarship award, Gladon writes, “He truly is a gem in every-thing that he does. He exemplifi es just about everything that is good about our young leaders of today, and I am sure that he will be a leader…in the future.”

Drawing Youth to the IndustryFor the industry to continue to be viable

and attract young, promising students, it needs to reach out and educate the new gen-erations, Pitzen says. “Young people need to be involved. Everybody is trying to fi gure out how we can tap into the younger generation. How many people my age have extra money to spend on fl owers — or even want to? We need to somehow market plants, make them more appealing than that iPod,” he says. “A lot of people don’t even know what horticulture is. It’s all around us. The grass we walk on, the trees we sit under. People don’t even know what it is, and they’re walking and standing on it. We need to educate young people.”

Kluth of Tagawa recognizes the need to attract young people to horticulture and open their eyes to the myriad opportunities the fi eld has to offer them, from pulling a hose to running a company. “There’s a lot of things in between,” he says. “We see the industry as being dynamic and in need of new enthusiasm coming from outside traditional methods.”

A New LookAs Pitzen prepares to enter the fi eld after

graduation, he is already thinking of what the industry might look like down the road. Change is certain, he says, and the need to adapt to a new playing fi eld is vital. “People still want the beauty; horticulture is going to be around forever,” but it will have a new ➧

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A Reality Check More than just fi ne-tuning skills and gaining “real-world”

experience, internships give students an honest look at the

job they are contemplating. This can be invaluable in the

often-daunting search for a fulfi lling career. Put simply, “It’s

about fi nding out what you do and don’t want to do,” says

Richard Gladon, the Iowa State University academic adviser

and associate professor of horticulture that mentored Eric

Pitzen, the 2007 GPN/Nexus Intern Scholarship recipient,

throughout his undergraduate career.

Cheryl Longtin, chairman and CEO of Nexus Corpora-

tion, adds that internships give students a “true sense” of

what their future careers might comprise. “It’s critical that

people understand the job they’re going into or aspiring to go into,” she says. “It allows them to test

it out before committing the rest of their life to it.” In this way, internships can be crucial timesavers

and eye openers for aspiring professionals and employers alike.

Dr. Richard Gladon (left) says students like Pitzen give him hope for the future of the industry.

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look, he says. “It’s going to be a different style: more rooftop gardens, window-box gardens. We need to adapt the crops to different situ-ations and market our products” so that they keep up with new consumer demands and environments.

The rising trend of sustainability will impact the face of horticulture in the near future, and Pitzen says he’s “all for” sustain-able practices. It appears the question of, “How do we keep our industry green?” is already brewing in the back of his mind, an example of the bold spirit and initiative he has demon-strated throughout his fl edgling career.

Staying True to His PassionThe curiosity that his grandmother sparked

in him as a fourth grader has fl ourished into a deeply rooted passion for Pitzen. He recalls sitting around his grandmother’s kitchen table one day during his junior year of high school, talking with his family about what he planned to study in college. His tightly knit family (Pitzen is the youngest of four boys) encouraged him to pursue a career that he would really love and enjoy. And so far, horti-culture appears to have been the right choice.

But a love for the job can only take you so far. By carefully planning his future, working hard and making it a priority to experience fi rsthand the various facets of the industry, Pitzen has managed to reach all the major goals he has set for himself. The support of

his family and the mentors he’s met along the way have helped keep him focused and moti-vated, he says. And come graduation, there’s no stopping him. “I’m really looking forward to the next chapter in my life,” he says.

Darhiana Mateo is associate editor of GPN. She can be reached at (847) 391-1013 or dmateo@sgcmail.com.

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LearnMoreFor more information related to this article, go to www.gpnmag.com/lm.cfm/gp010801

Upon graduation in May, Pitzen plans to pursue a career in new-product development and breeder relations. “The constant change really grabs my attention,” he says.