VNLA – Who’s Who in The Beautiful Gardens® Family

Doug Hensel volunteered to be the new Vice-Chairman of the Plant Introduction Program in 2006. In June 2007, he accepted the position of Chairman of the Beautiful Gardens® Plant Introduction Program, taking over the reins from Fred Duis who had served as chairman since 2004. Now that Beautiful Gardens is moving into a marketing/promotion phase of the program, Doug is well qualified to guide the program into its next phase!

As a businessman, Doug has shown leadership. He applied for employment at The Great Big Green House in 1977 and has been there ever since. He worked himself up the ranks of management and became President of the company in 1999. During his 30 years there, he committed himself to hard work and demonstrated his loyalty to the company by bringing The Great Big Green House to be one of the outstanding garden centers in the state of Virginia.

Doug has shown commitment and leadership to our industry groups as well. And as he has served, he has carried out the responsibilities entrusted to him with the highest degree of honesty, dignity and old-fashioned hard work!

In 1992 he was elected to the board of the Central Virginia Nursery and Landscape Association and served as President in 1997. Doug was instrumental in implementing new and beneficial ways of promoting the association to its members and to the public.

In 1997 Doug was elected to the Board of the VNLA, serving as President in 2004. Throughout his term on the VNLA Board, he has demonstrated leadership by contributing sound advice in every area of activity. As President, Doug continued to use his quiet leadership style to provide excellent direction to the association, then as Past-President, he worked on revising the VNLA Policy Manual.

Doug has also been instrumental with The Great Big Greenhouse providing attractive arrangements of violets in baskets for the VNLA Legislative Committee to deliver each year to all the members of the General Assembly. He was the recipient of the VNLA’s 2005 Nurseryman of the Year Award.

Since 1992, Doug has been on the MANTS Board, serving as President in 1995 and in 2004. Note that this was also the year that he was president of the VNLA. MANTS has become one of the top horticultural trade shows in the nation, and that didn’t happen by accident. Doug’s hard work and leadership, along with that of many other board members, has allowed all of us to reap the benefits.

Turn to Richmond’s NBC channel 12 once a week and there we see his love and knowledge of horticulture by answering unrehearsed call-in questions on their "Ask the Expert" segment. As he graciously answers callers, sometimes-crazy questions, notice the Virginia Certified Horticulturist badge that he proudly wears. He reminds listeners to look for a Certified Horticulturist to help them with their gardening questions. Doug feels strongly that promoting certification and professionalism is key to our industry, so he takes this great opportunity to tell thousands of listeners about it.

As Doug returns to The Great Big Greenhouse, we notice signs around the store promoting the fact that Certified Horticulturist work there. And as we look around, an amazingly high number of employees have Certified Horticulturist badges on to prove it. This is evidence of Doug’s commitment to help his business, employees, and our industry at the same time. If we all followed his lead, we would be significantly further down the road to broad customer awareness of the Certified Horticulturist Program.