1987 was a great year...we both agreed. The L.A.T.E. Show ‘87 was a tremendous success. It will definitely take a good deal of planning to top the first Landscape Architectural Trade Exposition and Conference. Wait until you hear what we have planned for you next!!

The magazine is up 280% in revenues over January and February 1987, thanks to your readership. The upcoming “Product File” and April show issues look to be our biggest, and biggest again, issues ever. Reader response from the East Coast is up to over 35%. In these regards both Marty and I agree; 1988 promises to be another year of solid growth...

Marty then told me the Landscape Architects in California were about to be dumped in with the geologists and stripped of their registration. I just about jumped out of my seat! Of all places, how could California (the first state to license their Landscape Architects) end up with a bill dissolving the state board and lumping Landscape Architects in with geologists in an advisory capacity. No way, not possible! I thought the CCLA was specifically designed to guard against just this. But Marty still insists that it could happen.

If that’s the case, I suggest to each one of you – take it upon yourself to contact your local state representative (whatever state you live in), and find out what their opinion of landscape architecture really is. If it can happen in California, it can happen to you, Colorado?!...Illinois?!...Utah?!...

Anyway, when the dust cleared about licensing, Marty suggested that licensing isn’t the only key issue facing us in 1988. He understood that many Landscape Architects were supporting the ”slow growth initiatives” that are popping up around the country. He sited the fact that many Landscape Architects feel the first option for any project is a vote of no project at all and that many Landscape Architects purport to be the “stewards of the land!”...

I agree wholeheartedly, with this perception of landscape architecture, AND…I feel that this is the asset that makes landscape architecture the answer, in fact, the solution to the “slow growth issue.” The battle was on...

Both Marty and I agreed that Landscape Architects need to gain more exposure in the public eye. I personally think the national ASLA spent a lot of money devising a plan that could have been implemented at a much lower cost. Marty then reminded me of the importance of the ASLA to the advancement of landscape architecture...agreed. However, we both felt that the ASLA should concentrate more on such benefits as...FASLA pension plans, credit union opportunities, insurance benefits, licensing and the actual implementation of a specific plan to increase the GENERAL PUBLIC’S awareness of “Landscape Architecture as it is Today”...

As you can tell there are many important issues facing Landscape architecture and the Landscape Architects who practice the discipline of landscape architecture. We both agree that we both that we both agree...the solution is found in you. Whether you agree with me, with Marty, or have an opinion of your own, The Landscape Architect and Specifier News is here to service the entire landscape architectural profession.

DATELINE: 1/27/88 – Thanks to an outstanding effort from Dick Radcliffe in lobbying for the Landscape Architectural Profession, California’s SB ‘87 was dropped at the Senate Rules Committee.

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