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Who's Who?
Dominick Celtrua (Hartford)
State University of New York at Cobleskill
– Associates in Horticultural Design &
State University of New York College of
Environmental Science and Forestry at
Syracuse
Josh Egnatz (Hartford)
Cornell University
(ever heard of it?)
Mark Heeb (Camp Hill)
Penn State University (undergrad) &
University of Georgia (grad)
Greg Holtzman (Camp Hill)
Penn State University
Joe Kelleher (Hartford)
UCONN
Elliot Shibley (Camp Hill)
Penn State University
Wayne Violette (Meriden)
U! C! O! N! N! UConn! UConn! UConn!
Be Inspired
What inspired your career
in Landscape Architecture?
CELTRUDA:
As a child working outdoors on a
friends farm, the feeling of nature (a fall morning
in New England), and my high school art teacher
David Belval who introduced me to the profession.
EGNATZ:
Robert Trent Jones. He is a golf course
architect - perhaps the first who went to college
with the specific purpose of becoming a golf
course architect. I became interested in landscape
Architecture in part because I liked this type of
design and the course local to where I grew up was
designed by Robert Trent Jones. My interests in
the profession have since expanded, but I still have
a sentimental dream of someday designing (or
contributing to the design) of a golf course.
HEEB:
I worked in construction beginning at age
13 and enjoyed the process of seeing a design
turn into a finished product. The integration of art
and science found in landscape architecture really
spoke to me.
HOLTZMAN:
It included an upgraded meal plan.
KELLEHER:
In high school, when looking for
colleges I wanted to study architecture, but at
the time there was not a single undergraduate
architecture program offered in CT. I learned that
UConn had a “landscape” architecture program.
Although I didn’t really know what that was, I had
a love of nature and art. Landscape Architecture
seemed like the perfect union of these two
interests.
SHIBLEY:
Trips to Yosemite National Park and
Yellowstone National Park.
VIOLETTE:
Growing up, I thought I would be an
Architect. Kind of like George Costanza, I liked
the sound of it. I was very much into designing
things. Legos probably kick started that. During
high school I was drawing floor plans and
elevations in CAD. I think I even walked around
with blueprints in the back pack to look cool.
Yes, I was clueless then too. And then the college
search began and the term Landscape Architecture
surfaced. I was intrigued about its basis in design
(like architecture) but was fascinated about the
"open palate" of working with the land. The more
I learned the more I was hooked. There were no
boundaries and no limits to what was possible (and
no budgets in college design). The design process
for Landscape Architecture has me hooked and
wanting for more.