Hall Of Fame Inductees

 

The individuals nominated should have made a significant impact or positive influence that assures the future of our industry in the lives of generations to come.

 

Once nominated, an individual’s biography and photo are updated on the site, and he or she is placed in the polls for voting. At the end of the year the committee takes into consideration the votes and decides which candidates are inducted.

 

Those with a star (*) next to their name below were either inducted posthumously or have passed away since being inducted.

 

Nomination Qualifications

  • Person with integrity and passion
  • Minimum 20 years in industry
  • Someone who has developed  or invented  new technology
  • Has made contributions that resulted in change
  • Contributed to mankind’s needs in his field
  • Provided education and encouragement  with self-sacrifice
  • Changed the industry

Katharine Rudnyk

 

Katharine’s horticulture career began in 1990 at Monrovia Nursery Company. As a Specialty Accounts Manager, she sold millions of dollars of branded container plants to 1,000s of garden and home centers throughout USA and Canada. As the company’s strategy evolved, Irvine Company invited Katharine to introduce Monrovia to 16 landscape architectural firms. Her horticultural outreach expanded to hundreds of landscape firms and professional groups, such as the Association of Professional Landscape Designers.

 

 

 

In 1997, Katharine convinced Monrovia to supply plants to HGTV's Surprise Gardener for brand placement. Many TV programs followed. For NBC’s prime time design show, America's Dream Builder, Katharine selected 25 different groups of plants to reflect the show’s architectural styles in exchange for premier brand placement.  She also negotiated a post-show landscape maintenance and irrigation for each homeowner. At the 2014 annual meeting of the American Society of Landscape Architects in Denver, five television executives spoke about how to work in TV, and it came about from an idea pitched by Katharine to ASLA’s executive communications team. 

 

 

 

Katharine was also employed as a landscape designer at Armstrong Garden Centers, urban horticulturalist at AHBE Landscape Architects, and currently as a horticultural specialist at Picture Perfect Landscape Construction and Maintenance.

 

 

Katharine is a member of the UCLA Landscape Architecture Guidance Committee and Cal Poly - San Luis Obispo’s Landscape Architecture Department Advisory Council.

 

 

She has a Bachelor of Arts in American Studies from Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana and an Associate of Science in Horticulture from Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut, California.