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Events
Visit the WASLA Event Calendar for more information on events.
In This Issue...
- President's Remarks
- Spokane Conference Highlight
- Hewitt Promotes Jake Woland To Principal
- October 2021 ecoPRO Certification Course | Save Your Seat!!
- Current Job Postings
- Support Endowed Scholarships
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WASLA Board of Directors
President
Duane Dietz, ASLA
Past President
Tim Slazinik, ASLA
Trustee
Marieke Lacasse, ASLA
Treasurer
Dean Koonts, ASLA
Secretary
Jason Henry, ASLA
Member at Large
Kiwon Suh, ASLA
Member at Large, W. WA
Nicholas Zurlini, ASLA
Member at Large, E. WA
Steele Fitzloff, ASLA
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President's Remarks
Duane Dietz
Greetings everyone! The Spokane Conference went well, and as I said at the podium that morning, it was good to see so many people in 3D again. 166 people came to Spokane, the sessions went on without too many technical issues, and it was fantastic to see our valued vendors and sponsors again in person and to pick up an armload of catalogs and business cards. And I invited the assemblage of WSU students to meet the vendors, take catalogs, and make connections. And walking the Spokane Riverfront was a revelation, seeing the Harold Balazs artworks, the giant red wagon, the garbage goat and much more.
I talked a bit in my somewhat rambling opening remarks about bald eagles. So here is some more rambling. When I was growing up in Renton in the late 1960’s, bald eagles were nearly wiped out of the lower 48 states. DDT, loss of habitat, and hunting were some of the pressure points hindering eagles. The birth of the green movement brought citizens, scientists, ecologists, politicians and many others together to address the underlying issues affecting the eagles. Fifty years later, I can look out my barn window and still be amazed to see an eagle perching atop the Douglas fir at the south boundary of my meadow. Yet, for a five-year old child that bald eagle is an everyday sight. They don’t know the hard work that has occurred. I have always believed that landscape architects are problem solvers. Our work is about perspective and gained wisdom. Our work also recognizes the time it takes to effect change.
Another side-ramble: In the mid-1980’s, I was one of the UW landscape architecture students involved in the Seattle-Tashkent Sister City Peace Park, a citizen-led project with WASLA and the Seattle Sister City Committee doing the bulk of the work. The goal was to design and build a peace park in Tashkent, Uzbekistan when it was still part of the USSR. I was there when the park opened to great fanfare in September 1988. Then the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. Uzbekistan declared its independence in August 1991, and the USSR itself dissolved in December 1991. Broad-spectrum societal change occurred. And landscape architects played a small role in a central Asia country that might have given it a boost.
This also brought to mind the Salem Witch Trial Tricentenary memorial, designed by architect James Cutler and artist Maggie Smith in 1992. Their small memorial, tucked into the back of the ancient Salem City Cemetery, is visceral. A u-shaped layout of granite stones jutting out of a low granite stacked stone wall.
Each jutting stone was carved with a name of the accused and how they were killed, the text set off to one side, beckoning the visitor to sit next to their name. Behind the low stone wall you could see the backs of all the tombstones in the cemetery. It seemed that after 300 years the wrongly accused were still shunned. Cutler and Smith’s philosophical statement about their memorial, written almost 30 years ago, sounds like it was written to describe the events of the last 24 months:
“DEAFNESS to the voices of others is the root of injustice.
SILENCE in the presence of injustice is complicity.
PERSECUTION for invented crimes is a symptom of injustice.
MEMORY of those taken in the past injustice should remain with us to guide us in the future.”
Lastly, I was deeply inspired in Spokane to see the next generation of WSU students at the conference, knowing they will be capable problems solvers in the near future. They are keyed into these issues and I look forward to helping them in any way I can.
Sincerely,
Duane Dietz
WASLA President
Spokane Conference Highlight
(Left to Right | WASLA Board Members Steele Fitzolff, Jason Henry, Dean Koonts & Marieke Lacasse, Certificate of Appreciation Awardee Alexandra (Alex) Stone, WASLA Board Members Duane Dietz & Nicholas Zurlini)
One benefit of the Conference was the opportunity to acknowledge the work of Alexandra (Alex) Stone. Alex recently retired from the National Park Service’s Rivers, Trails and Conservation Assistance (NPS-RTCA) program where she served as a liaison with Don Benson from WASLA Chapter. The partnership between NPS-RTCA and WASLA has resulted in many successful charrettes (most recently the Touchet Valley Trail plan in 2020) that helped communities across the State of Washington. The WASLA-NPS-RTCA partnership agreement has been continually renewed since its start in 1998. The benefits of the program later served as a model for a successful partnership agreement between NPS and National ASLA. For her service to the profession and in helping form this partnership, Alex was awarded a Certificate of Appreciation by WASLA at the Spokane conference.
Hewitt Promotes Jake Woland To Principal
SEATTLE, Sept. 28, 2021 – Seattle-based design firm HEWITT today announced the promotion of Jake Woland, ASLA, LEED AP, to the position of principal. Woland, who served as a senior associate in HEWITT’s landscape architecture studio for 13 years, joins the firm’s six other principals on the executive leadership team.
“Jake embodies everything we look for in a studio design leader - thoughtful, skilled, creative and collaborative. He has been a wonderful mentor to our staff since he arrived at HEWITT, and has worked as lead designer on a multitude of complex urban mixed-use projects in Seattle and throughout the region,” said Kris Snider, principal and director of design – landscape architecture at HEWITT. “His new role allows him to more fully engage in the larger creative vision of our studio as well as broadly guide the design execution of projects.”
With more than 20 years of experience as a design leader, Woland brings a passion for conceptualizing the space between buildings with an empathy for people and thoughtful consideration of place. He regularly lectures at the University of Washington, taught urban design studios at Rutgers, and authored “Site Engineering for Landscape Architecture,” a highly regarded textbook on sustainable site design. Woland has worked across a wide variety of urban conditions and scales, including waterfronts, civic open spaces, transit facilities, streetscapes, multiple-block mixed use developments and commercial projects.
Woland received his Master of Landscape Architecture from the University of Washington and his Bachelor of Science, Geological Sciences, from Tufts University. He is a member of the American Society of Landscape Architects.
ABOUT HEWITT
Founded in 1975, Seattle-based HEWITT is a design firm dedicated to improving the fabric of cities and the way people live. Comprised of architecture, landscape architecture and transportation architecture studios, HEWITT is a collective of creators and thinkers who are driven by their curiosity and rigor, and inspired by historical, cultural and natural context.
October 2021 ecoPRO Certification Course | Save Your Seat!!
ecoPRO Training & Exam | October 25 - 29, 8:30am to Noon
Location: Hosted Virtually, Space is limited.
Cost: $150 | ecoPRO Retest: $75
This ecoPRO Training is hosted virtually by WSU Puyallup's Urban IPM Program with funding from USDA-NIFA. The training is open to all landscape professionals. For those seeking advanced certification, individuals must meet eligibility.
Because of USDA funding, WSU Puyallup's Urban IPM Program is providing ecoPRO Handbooks
($50 value) to all confirmed registrants. Click here to view the training agenda.
Click here to reserve your seat at the ecoPRO Training & Exam
Please note there will be no WSDA pesticide license credits offered for the ecoPRO Training
Current WASLA Job Postings
Support Endowed Scholarships
Ken Struckmeyer Student Scholarship Endowment Fund
Kenichi Nakano Endowed Scholarship Fund for Landscape Architecture
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