Landscape Horticulture students were 4th in national competition

During Spring Break (Mar. 20-23, 2019), a delegation of 22 students, four faculty and staff coaches, and Business Technologies Dean Linda Schaffeld traveled to Colorado State University (Fort Collins) for the National Association of Landscape Professionals’ National Collegiate Landscape Competition. 

Participants in the photo above are:

• (Front row, from left) Lynn Lorio, Heather Augustine (advisor), Dasha Ferguson, BTD Dean Linda Schaffeld, Dorothy Woodbury, Hannah Carter.
• (Middle row, from left) Tim McDowell, Jackson Hamann, Kathy Mountain, Kat Meza, Taylor Gillam, Jacob Melvin, Chloe Paul, Jonathan Heflin, Rachel Stothfang, Austin Mobley.
• (Back row, from left) Mark Deacon (advisor), Brian Walsh, Jack Schaefer, Ed Atkinson, Nathan McKain, Brad Miller, Dan Vidourek, Cara Robinson, Brian Hooten (advisor), Joe Muldoon, and Kelly Wanstrath (advisor).

The National Association of Landscape Professionals (NALP) is the green industry’s premier professional organization. The 2019 competition was one of the largest in 43 years of the event, with 64 schools represented and 844 students participating.

Cincinnati State’s team placed fourth overall– the highest placement for the College in the past two decades of competition– and Cincinnati State was one of five community colleges among the top 20 teams.

The Cincinnati State team ranked ahead of large schools including Michigan State Univ., Penn State Univ., Virginia Tech., North Carolina State Univ., Univ. of Georgia, Auburn Univ., Mississippi State Univ., and host school Colorado State Univ.

Brigham Young Univ. – Provo took first place and Brigham Young Univ. – Idaho placed second. Third place went to another Ohio team: Cuyahoga Community College.

In individual honors, Lynn Lorio and Joe Muldoon placed 5^th and 13^th overall out of all students participating. Both Lynn and Joe competed in five separate events.

Lynn also was honored at a scholarship reception where she received the TruGreen Environmental Stewardship Platinum Scholarship from the NALP Foundation.

Other individual achievement included:

• Dorothy Woodbury placed 2^nd in Landscape Lighting
• Lynn Lorio placed 3^rd in Annual and Perennial Identification
• Nathan McKain placed 3^rd in Small Engine Troubleshooting

For Dorothy’s and Nathan’s events, only the 12 students with the highest qualifying exam scores were allowed to compete. 

Eight of the 29 events required qualifying exams, and in a school first, all of the Cincinnati State students passed the qualifiers for those events. 

Other events that had Cincinnati State students in the top ten included:

• Nathan McKain and Jacob Melvin, 5^th place, Wood Construction
• Joe Muldoon, 5^th place, Irrigation Design
• Austin Mobley and Dan Vidourek, 6^th place, Landscape Maintenance Operations
• Lynn Lorio, 8^th place, Interior Plant Identification
• Jack Schaefer, 8^th place, Woody Plant Identification
• Brian Walsh, 9^th place, Computer Aided Landscape Design
• Jack Schaefer and Lynn Lorio, 9^th place, Employee Development
• Joe Muldoon, Dan Vidourek, and Kat Meza, 10th place, Landscape Plant Installation

Each event was worth a total of 200 points, so even students placing outside the top ten in each event earned points towards the team total.

While in Colorado, Cincinnati State students participated in a national career fair with over 100 green industry businesses from throughout the U.S.

Students also toured the Denver Botanic Garden and Rocky Mountain National Park.