Seminar Dates: November 12, 2025 11:30 AM
Seminar Cost: $45.00 Register Now
Seminar Description:
Join industry leaders for a panel discussion on technologies and their impact on sustainable practices in soil, horticulture, and irrigation.
Learning Objectives:
Learn about changing technologies and their affect on sustainable elements.
Doug Callison / Nicholas Staddon / Gary Lai / Kim Chacon
Nicholas Staddon has been working with plant breeders, hybridizers, and professional plant explorers for 25 years, scouring the globe for new creations and discoveries in the plant world. Born in England, Staddon received credentials in Agricultural Science from Otley Agricultural College. When he first arrived in the United States, he managed garden centers in Albuquerque and Santa Fe, New Mexico “…where the vistas will move your heart and the gardening will break it,” he says. Staddon went on to work for Monrovia Nursery for 27 years, 15 of which as the leader of the New Plant program.
Staddon resides in California working as a Horticultural Consultant and Plantsman. He is a sought-after speaker and guest for gardening television and radio shows across the United States. He works closely with professional garden writers, providing information on plants and sharing his views on garden trends and more.
Nicholas is proud to be professionally affiliated with the Royal Horticultural Society, California Plant Alliance, and AmericanHort. He is on the Board of Advisors for the Mediterranean Garden Society of Southern California, Climate Ready Landscape Plants, a USDA SCMP Project, and Cal-HIP (California Horticultural Invasives Prevention), which is a voluntary partnership to help gardeners and the horticultural industry to proactively address the problem of invasive plants in the trade. He is member of GardenComm. A community of Garden Writers and Communicators working across the United States providing gardening information and related services.
Doug Callison CID, CLIA – President, Callison Irrigation Consulting
Doug is a seasoned veteran with over 45-years in the irrigation industry, boasts a diverse career spanning distribution, manufacturing, and consulting. Holding 11 patents for irrigation control system applications, he spent 32 years as a Product Manager and Water Conservation Manager at Rain Bird. Currently serving as President of Callison Irrigation Consulting, Doug remains dedicated to advancing irrigation water conservation initiatives alongside industry partners.
Gary Lai is an accomplished landscape architect and thought leader in sustainability, resiliency and conservation. Gary leverages three decades of design and planning experience to steer large, complex projects to successful completion. His interest in drawing and environmentalism led him to a field that he describes as the ‘architecture of living things’ with an immense potential to impact quality of life for future generations. He has extensive expertise in sustainable design, resiliency and water conservation issues that enable him to focus and maximize the creative energies of project collaborators toward innovative solutions. Gary is committed to local environmental advocacy and education. He is currently the Chair of the Board of Directors for the United States Green Building Council, Los Angeles (USGBC-LA) and a Co-Chair for the Urban Landscape Committee at USGBC- LA. He is a founder of the International Living Future Institute (ILFI) collaborative, Living Future Los Angeles and is a founding member of the new urbanist think tank, New American Dream. Professionally, Gary is a Lecturer at CalPoly Pomona Landscape Architecture Department and has his own firm, Quixotic Nature-based Solutions.
Kim Chacon specializes in bee landscape habitat analysis and design. Kim finished her PhD and in Geography from UC Davis in 2021. Her thesis assessed patch dynamics and potential landscape fragmentation within the UC Davis Arboretum’s themed gardens, where a combination of fieldwork and GIS mapping analysis showed the Arboretum’s function as novel ecosystems to many of the California’s native bees. Read more about Kim’s research and work at beelandscapes.com. Since 2021, Kim has taught her own Landscape Architecture, Horticulture, and GIS courses at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo and Merritt College in Oakland, California. She is passionate about opening her students’ eyes to landscape design and landscape ecology. Kim is intrinsically interested in plants, bees, gardens often, and designs for pollinators all the time.
