AmericanHort Welcomes New Board Members and Officers

Jennifer Zurko

AmericanHort announced the addition of three new industry professionals to the AmericanHort board of directors, along with the incoming slate of board officers.

The new slate of officers for 2023-2024 include Rob Lando as the incoming board chairman and Ed Overdevest as the incoming board vice chairman. Jon Reelhorn of Belmont Nursery will become the immediate past chairman and J. Harvey Cotten will continue to serve as board treasurer in a non-voting position.

Rob Lando is best known in professional circles for his co-founding and building of Ohio-based AgriNomix, North America’s largest supplier of automation to nurseries and greenhouses. Ed Overdevest is the president and owner of Overdevest Nurseries in New Jersey where they sell to independent garden centers and distributors within a 300-mile radius of Bridgeton.

The AmericanHort membership has also elected the following new board directors:

• Derek Clark is Director of Sales for South Central Growers, a second-generation family-owned greenhouse in Springfield, Tennessee, producing annuals and perennials for the big box retailers.

• Brian Lloyd is CEO of Olson’s Greenhouse, a fourth-generation, family-owned group of companies growing, distributing and merchandising bedding plants to mass market retailers throughout the Western United States.

• Emily Showalter is the Chief of Human Resources at Willoway Nurseries, Inc. in Avon, Ohio, a third-generation family-owned business and one of the largest wholesale growers of quality nursery stock in the Midwest.

These new directors will join current board directors Kurt Becker, Dramm Corporation; Matt Edmundson, Arbor Valley Nursery; Kent Fullmer, Fullmer’s Landscaping; Steve Mostardi of Mostardi Nursery; Lyndsi Oestmann, Loma Vista Nursery; and Ann Tosovsky, Home Nursery Inc.

AmericanHort and its members express appreciation to outgoing board members, Mike Gooder, Plantpeddler Inc., and Jonathan Saperstein, Everde Growers, who each served a three-year term from 2020-2023; and Cole Mangum, Bell Nursery USA LLC, who served on the board from 2017-2023 and was board chairman during his tenure. GT