Raleigh, N.C. – At its 2018 annual meeting during Green & Growin’ 18 in Greensboro, N.C. Jan. 15-19, the membership of the North Carolina Nursery & Landscape Association (NCNLA) elected two industry professionals to serve three-year terms on the NCNLA Board of Directors. The new NCNLA directors are Leslie Herndon and Jeff Allegood.
Leslie Herndon, vice president of operations for Greenscape Inc., in Holly Springs, N.C. Leslie is a 16-year employee of Greenscape Inc., where she began her career as a floriculture technician. She currently manages the operations and customer service/sales teams as vice president of operations. A North Carolina native, Leslie joined the Greenscape Inc. team after graduating from N.C. State University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Landscape Horticulture and minors in Business Management and Botany. Holding professional designations as both a North Carolina Certified Plant Professional and NALP Landscape Industry Certified - Manager, she previously worked for Turtle Creek Nursery and a retail garden center employee part time while in high school and college. A gardener at heart, she has a passion for flowers and also currently designs the living walls that Greenscape install and maintain for customers.
The second new director is Jeff Allegood. Jeff is the general manager of Old Courthouse Nursery, a 40-acre container nursery in Warsaw, N.C. A native of Greenville, N.C., his first job was working in the corn fields of eastern N.C. at the age of 15. Jeff did landscaping and retail nursery work throughout high school and college, later graduating from NC State University with a Bachelor of Science in Forest Management. A recipient of both NCNLA’s Bill Wilder Outstanding Young Nursery Professional Award (2013) and the Southern Nursery Association’s David E. Laird, Sr. Memorial Award (2015), he is also a past-president of the Johnston County Nursery Marketing Association. When Jeff isn’t working, he enjoys spending time with his wife Katie, daughter Etta and son Luke. Outside of work and family he spends his time on his hobbies of hunting, fishing and growing vegetables.
Herndon and Allegood will join the following returning members of NCNLA’s board:
President Shanon Spivey, Spivey’s Nursery, Inc., Kernersville, N.C.
Vice president/secretary/treasurer Jamie Thomas, Swift Creek Nursery, Clayton, N.C.
Past president Chad Gragg, Buffalo Creek Nurseries, Inc., Lenoir, N.C.
Director Hugh Crump, Greenline Designs, Charlotte, N.C.
Director Chris Mitchell, Ewing Irrigation and Landscape Supply, Garner, N.C.
Director Richard Gant, Gant’s Nursery, Marion, N.C.
Director Willie Bass, Hawksridge Farms, Hickory, N.C.