Although I teach middle school kids for a living, one of my passions has always been plants. I began growing orchids as an offshoot from working at Longwood Gardens in Philadephia just after college. From the very beginning it was all about Paphs, particularly awarded and select clones of historic importance, of which my collection numbers nearly 1000. While I love finding old, rare stepping stones in paph breeding, I also do a little hybridizing of my own, and growing up my own babies is a blast. I am a probationary judge with the American Orchid Society, and have served in various capacities with the Santa Clara Valley Orchid Society. I love meeting other people who like orchids too, and doing so often finds me traveling to shows, vendors, and peoples’ greenhouses to see the latest and greatest in new hybrids and to get the best orchid gossip. I like to be involved in plants as much as possible: in addition to Longwood, I’ve worked at the Smithsonian Institution tending to their orchids, and for years for the United States National Arboretum, collecting rare plants and documenting cultivated species and hybrids for their herbarium. I’ll be sharing a presentation on modern Lycaste breeding – what you can expect to see on vendor’s tables and how that will affect how you grow and show them.