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Contact: Heather Finney
Phone: (800) 395-2522
E-mail: Heather Finney

PLANET ANNOUNCES ADDITIONS TO ITS ACCREDITATION PROGRAM

HERNDON, Va., July 1, 2009 — The Professional Landcare Network (PLANET) is pleased to announce that Chattahoochee Technical College, North Metro Campus, in Acworth, Georgia, and SUNY Cobleskill in Cobleskill, New York, are the latest schools to have earned their PLANET accreditation. Milwaukee Area Technical College in Mequon, Wisconsin, also recently learned that is has become reaccredited.

PLANET’s accreditation program is an “industry accreditation,” driven by the needs of the landscape industry. It provides local and national recognition for schools with four-year Bachelor of Science and two-year Associate of Science degree programs that meet the needs of the industry, and is the only nationally recognized endorsement offered to colleges and universities with landscape/horticulture curricula. Twenty-six institutions of higher learning now have programs that are PLANET accredited.

The Environmental Horticultural Program at Chattahoochee Technical College, North Metro Campus, a two-year school, was granted provisional full accreditation through 2016. The site visit team included team leader Edward Plaster, retired horticulture instructor at Dakota County Technical College, Rosemont, Minnesota; Timothy J. Schauwecker, assistant professor, Mississippi State University, Starkville, Mississippi; and HighGrove Partners CEO Jim McCutcheon, CLP, of Atlanta, Georgia. Provisional full accreditation means the school has three years to complete the suggested recommendations to become full accredited.
PLANET accreditation team leader Greg Jolley, RLA, professor of Landscape Management, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah; Steven Cohen, Ph.D., professor of Practice, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland; Glenn Jacobsen, CLP, president of Jacobsen Landscape Design and Construction, Midland Park, New Jersey; and Reese Nelson, Ph.D., professor of Horticulture, Brigham Young University – Idaho, Rexburg, Idaho, recently visited SUNY Cobleskill. They granted this four-year school’s Bachelor of Technology in Landscape Contracting program full accreditation through 2016.

The site visit team to two-year school Milwaukee Area Technical College included  leader Edward Plaster, retired horticulture instructor at Dakota County Technical College, Rosemont, Minnesota; Randey Wall, horticulture department chair, Illinois Central College, East Peoria, Illinois; Joe Kujawa, CLP, Kujawa Enterprises, Inc., Oak Creek, Wisconsin; and Scott Frampton, Landscape Renovations, Afton, Minnesota. The team granted provisional full accreditation through 2016 to the school’s Landscape Horticulture Department.

For more information about PLANET accreditation, contact Anna Walraven or visit the Accreditation section at LandcareNetwork.org.

PLANET is the association of members who create and maintain the QUALITY OF LIFE in communities across America. With more than 3,500 member companies and affiliates, these firms and their employees represent more than 100,000 green industry professionals.