VNLA Newsletter Spring 2018

VNLA – Recognition of Retiring Executive Director, Jeff Miller

Jeff was Presented with the SNA's David E Laird Sr Award that same year, 1983. He was also named Nursery Profes- sional of the year in 1990, known then as the politically in- correct Nurseryman of the Year. Jeff was hired as Executive Director in 1988. I have a short story I want to share with you about his hiring. For a number of years the VNA had a Executive Director named KT Martin. When she left we enlisted the services of an association management firm in Richmond. After a while it became obvious that this wasn’t working, we were getting very little attention from the person responsible for our association. John Machen, Bob Papetti and I met with the gentleman in Richmond and fired him. After leaving the meeting we looked at each other and said, “now what do we do?” As we talked, the name that kept surfacing was Jeff Miller. We knew that Jeff was involved in his own garden center business in Christiansburg, but we felt it was worth a phone call. Bob phoned Jeff and found that he was inter- ested. We all met in Staunton that evening and after a brief meeting Jeff was hired as Executive Director.

A presentation by Danny Shreckhise, Shreckhise Nurseries, at the VNLA Annual Breakfast Meeting on January 11, 2018 I would like to have your undivided attention for a few minutes. Not because I, in anyway, deserve your undivided attention but I have a few thing that I would like to say about a man who does. A man who has for more than 30 years given us, our great industry, our great Association, his un- divided attention. Jeff Miller's name has been synonymous with the VNA and VNLA for, well, almost forever. He has been a huge part of our past and present. He knew people like George Stockner, who served as Pres- ident in 1956 and Thelma Yates who was President in 68, Ken McDonald in 71, Turpin Philips in 75, Chuck Young in 76, Ralph Hanna in 79, Randy Prillaman in 80, Bill Minor in 81. These are names that I'll guess many of you may not know and may have never heard, yet they are a part of who we are as an association. And as I said, Jeff knew them and worked with all of them even before he became VNA Pres- ident himself in 1983. He has been able to keep our past tied to the present in a way few, if anyone, could have done.

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