Board of Directors

The last election of the board was conducted at the HPSO Annual Meeting on November 03, 2024.

Zoe Nielsen, President (Second Term)

After a career in law and international relations, Zoe returned to an early interest in plants and the natural world. Originally from Australia, Zoe's first degree is in landscape architecture. She has over 15 years experience in the nonprofit world and was a founding board member of two nonprofits. Zoe joined the HPSO board in 2020 and has chaired the Speaker Programs Committee and the Climate Change Committee. She is a lifelong gardener most at home gardening in the subtropics but is enjoying the challenge of establishing a dry garden in the Columbia River Gorge. Zoe is interested in institutional development, strategic planning, and engaging with the best of local, national, and international knowledge and practice around plants and gardening. Zoe gardens in White Salmon, Washington.

Vicki Green, First Vice President (Second Term)

Vicki is an active fused glass artist living in Vancouver, WA. She retired from the high-tech industry after nearly 30 years in Information Technology. She brings leadership and project management skills to the board. In 2010 she purchased a home with a shop for her glass work, one acre of grass, and absolutely no plants. She reached out to a friend she knew who gardened and asked her how to get started. Shortly after, she joined HPSO. Since becoming an HPSO board member in 2020, Vicki has chaired the Open Gardens Committee, served on the Hortlandia Committee, and acted as the moderator for the HPSO online Community Forum. Vicki is Co-chair for the HPSO Garden Study Weekend in 2025.

Eloise Morgan, Vice President (Second Term)

Karen Palmer, Treasurer (First Term)

Karen Palmer has been a WSU Master Gardener in Clark County for 25 years. She was part of a team to organize the 2010 and 2015 Washington State Master Gardener Conferences held in Vancouver, Washington. She was also on the Board of Directors, serving as Treasurer for two years and as Executive Administrative Assistant for several years. Karen has been a member of HPSO and the Clark County Interest Group since 2006. Karen has volunteered at Hortlandia for many years in the plant holding area, and is on the planning committee for Garden Study Weekend 2025. Karen, now retired from a career as Director of Engineering for a small software company, gardens in Hockinson, Washington with her husband, three cats, and a herd of deer who regularly wander through to sample the “salad buffet”.

 Pam Skalicky, Secretary (First Term)

Pam Skalicky grew up in the wheat country of Eastern Washington.  After graduating from Washington State University, she worked in office administration for a medical society, a major snack food company and an international high tech company. Gardening in Northwest Vancouver and volunteering became her main focus after retirement. Pam has volunteered at the Legacy Healing Garden and worked as program co-chair and secretary/newsletter editor for HPSO's Clark County Interest Group for over 15 years. She currently serves on the Open Gardens and After Hours Committees for HPSO.  She considers gardening, HPSO and the many garden friends she has made her personal lifeline.

 Marcia Sparling, Vice President (First Term)

Marcia Sparling comes from a long line of devoted and creative gardeners. After studying systems theory and the interface between human and biological systems, she worked for the BC Forest Service, helping establish work in forest genetics. Marcia then studied medicine and moved to SW Washington, where she worked as a physician. She has extensive board experience, with a focus on strategic planning and change management. Marcia joined HPSO in 1994. Over the years she has volunteered at Hortlandia and shared her garden, a part-native forest and part-restoration project, through the Open Gardens Program. Marcia is interested in science and how the changing climate is impacting plants. She gardens in La Center, WA.

Kim Campbell, Director-at-Large (First Term)

A native Oregonian, Kim Campbell grew up in the forests of the Columbia Gorge, picking and pressing flowers with her biologist father and tending flower beds alongside her mother. This deep connection with nature has profoundly shaped her life and work. Today, Kim uses flowers and plants to create inspiring spaces around her home, which houses her real estate office and photo studio, blending personal enjoyment with professional creativity. As a lifelong entrepreneur she brings creative problem-solving to HPSO and embraces the benefits of technology to carve out more time for walks through her Sellwood-Moreland neighborhood. Kim’s urban garden contributes to the health of bees, birds, and insects, fostering a thriving ecosystem in her urban backyard.

Ruth Clark, Director-at-Large (Second Term)

Ruth Clark recently retired from 30 plus years in the utility/natural gas industry.  A longtime member of HPSO, she has volunteered at Hortlandia, Plant Nerd Night, and Portland Study Weekend. She is a member of the After Hours committee and the Open Garden committee and has opened her garden to visitors for many years. She is an active member of the Clark County Interest Group. A fan of the HPSO travel program, she has been on four overseas tours.  She also earned her fifteen-year pin with the Clark County Master Gardener program and volunteered at the Healing Garden at Legacy Salmon Creek.  Ruth gardens on three acres in North Vancouver, Washington.

Elizabeth Crouse, Director-at-Large (First Term)

Elizabeth Crouse is a fifth-generation Oregonian and renewable energy project finance attorney. She has served on the board of Seattle Tilth (now Tilth Alliance) and in various professional leadership positions. Elizabeth has gardened on balconies, spare scraps of dirt, and backyards in Honolulu, Ann Arbor, Seattle, and Portland, always combining edibles with ornamentals. Her proudest moments are when her elementary age children educate passing neighbors about all the plants in the garden.

Jeanne DeBenedetti-Keyes, Director-at-Large (Second Term)

Madeline Forsyth, Director-at-Large (Third Term)

Madeline was a Registered Nurse for 23 years, mostly at Adventist Medical Center, until her retirement in 2005. Upon her retirement, she took the Master Gardener program and began volunteering at the International Rose Test Garden in Washington Park. She volunteers there weekly and serves as a tour guide as well as Vice-President of their Friends Board of Directors. While her children were growing up, she was very active in a variety of parents’ groups. She is an active participant in HPSO’s Open Garden Program. She is the Co-chair of the Garden Travel Committee and has been on many HPSO garden trips. Madeline gardens on a quarter-acre lot in Gresham, OR.

Harry Landers, Director-at-Large (Third Term)

Harry Landers has a degree in Horticulture from North Dakota State University.  After working in horticulture in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, he moved to Portland and worked for 28 years at the International Rose Test Gardens, where he was named curator in 2015. During his time at the Garden, Harry increased its number of roses from around 3,500 specimens to just under 11,000, and the Garden gained recognition as one of the top 100 rose gardens in the world and top 10 public gardens in the U.S.  Representing the International Rose Test Garden, Harry joined the board of the Portland Rose Society in 2005 and served as program chair until 2018. He is an active Royal Rosarian and the Royal Gardener for the second time. He's also active with Clackamas Master Gardeners. Harry's diverse experience is an asset to HPSO activities. Harry gardens in Clackamas, OR.

 Linda Sellheim, Director-at-Large (First Term)

Linda Sellheim has an MFA in illustration and visual storytelling and her career has spanned diverse industries, from fashion to toy design. For the last 20 years of her career Linda taught art and design with a focus on using real-time 3D visualization tools working for Autodesk, LinkedIn, and Epic Games building education programs. Now retired, her focus is on the ultimate time-based medium, gardening.  She loves the ever-evolving compositions of her 2.5 acre canvas. Linda became a Master Gardener in 2022, co-chairing the Perennial Propagation Group, and a Master Food Preserver in 2023, allowing her to fully utilize her garden. Linda has been a volunteer at Hortlandia and gardens in the Dundee Hills in Yamhill County.

Robb Sloan, Director-at-Large (First Term)

Robb Sloan has been an avid plant collector since he was in his early twenties with bonsai being the gateway into a world of wonder and surprise. While studying horticulture, Robb worked for a well-known landscape designer and nursery owner, who then became his mentor. Robb has held positions ranging from landscape designer, to contractor, to Head Gardener for McMenamins and has experience in propagation, retail, and management. Robb was inspired to restart Noname Nursery while visiting his son in Japan in 2015, becoming a production grower in 2017. Robb realized the need to supply customers with unusual and unique plants that larger growers ignored. Robb is on the Board of the FarWest Show and has been a vendor at Hortlandia.

Vivian Solomon, Director-at-Large (First Term)

Vivian Solomon is a practicing attorney who spends her spare time gardening or skiing. Luckily, there is minimal overlap between her two passions. Vivian became a gardener when she and her husband bought their house in 1989 and realized they had a yard to care for. She became a Master Gardener in 2013 to learn about removing her lawns and planting new gardens. With that project, Vivian’s love for gardening took off, buoyed by a new vice: plant lust. Vivian has worked with the Washington County Master Gardeners on GardenFest since 2016, and her primary garden-related volunteer role is giving tours of the International Rose Test Garden in Washington Park. She is an editor for the HPSO Quarterly, serves on the After Hours committee, and has volunteered at Hortlandia and PlantFest.

Janet Tapper, Director-at-Large (Second Term)

Janet retired after 15 years as Dean of Library Services at University of Western States in November of 2019. She has twice served on the board of directors for the Oregon Association of College and Research Libraries and as Chair of the Chiropractic Libraries Consortia. She joined HPSO in 2020 and the pandemic allowed her time to study and enhance her suburban garden with the help of the HPSO resources and online courses. She is in the certification process for Backyard Habitat, she is planting natives for pollinators and to reduce water requirements. Janet gardens in the Rock Creek/Beaverton area. She chairs the Garden Literature Committee.

 Sally Travi, Director-at-Large (First Term)

Sally Travi has had a long career in financial management, working with both for-profit and nonprofit entities. She is currently the part-time CFO for Partnerships for Purpose, a consulting group specializing in the non-profit sector, and as Treasurer for Cross-Movement Legacy Initiative, a non-profit working for social justice and transformative culture change. Gardening since she was in her twenties, she has always planted a garden of both vegetables and flowers but prefers the latter. She aims for the widest possible variety of blooms that go off nearly year round. Sally has volunteered at Hortlandia and sits on the 2025 Garden Study Weekend Committee. She gardens in Southeast Portland.

Beth Winter, Director-at-Large (Third Term) 

Beth Winter is a photographer and book designer. She is Co-chair of HPSO's Botanical Exhibits Committee, and serves on the Nominating Committee as well as the Hortlandia Committee. She has also served as Chair of the HPSO/Garden Conservancy Open Garden Days in recent years. In 2020 she became the Board Liaison to the HPSO Special Interest Groups. Beth gardens in Beavercreek, OR.