John POWELL is a Japanese garden design, construction and maintenance consultant. After his first visit to Japan in 1993, he launched into an intensive study of Japanese garden history, design, construction and maintenance. In 1997, he attended the first intensive seminar at the Research Center for Japanese Garden Art and Historical Heritage in Kyoto, Japan. This was followed by an internship with Suzuki Zoen in Niigata, Japan and at the Adachi Museum of Art in Yasugi, Japan. In 2011, he completed the design and construction of the new Asian sculpture garden at the Crow Collection of Asian Art in Dallas, Texas. He serves as lead garden consultant for several Japanese gardens around the United States including the Charlotte Partridge Ordway Japanese Garden in Como Park, St. Paul, Minnesota and the Garden of Quiet Listening in Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota. John is a frequent contributor to Sukiya Living magazine.     

Dr. Makoto SUZUKI is the Director of the Tokyo Nodai Center for International Japanese Garden Studies at the Tokyo University of Agriculture and a professor at the university's Department of Landscape Architecture Science. His research interests include the history of modern landscape architecture, the critical examination of modern garden design and Japanese gardens outside of Japan.He has been writing many books and articles in English on these topics since 2006. He is also concurrently the President of the Academic Society of Japanese Garden and sits as Chairman of the academic committee of the Japanese Institute of Landscape Architecture. He has given many lectures as visiting professor at many universities outside Japan.

Hugo TORII has been a gardener and landscape architect at Ueyakato Landscape Co. Ltd. since 2002. With a Master's degree in Landscape Design from Kyoto University of Art and Design, he has studied Japanese aesthetics and Japanese gardens and also has a background as a florist before stepping into his current career as a garden craftsman. He has managed several notable projects for Ueyakato including the Japanese garden and greeneries for the 24-hectare Keihanna Commemorative Park and for the 5,000 square-meter Yosuien Japanese strolling pond garden. He has also participated in the annual maintenance of pine trees in the Nijo Castle, a World Heritage Site and was a team leader in Kyoto City street trees maintenance program.  

Sadafumi UCHIYAMA is the Garden Curator at the Portland Japanese Garden. Sada is from Kyushu where his family has been involved in gardening since the Meiji Period. He is a registered landscape architect in Oregon and California with Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Landscape Architecture from the University of Illinois.  Prior to Portland, he handled projects around the US, including renovation of the Osaka Garden at Jackson Park in Chicago and the Shofu-en at the Denver Botanic Garden. He served as secretary of the International Association of Japanese Gardens and was deeply involved in the creation of NAJGA, where he now serves on the board of directors. He has lectured and published articles about Japanese gardening. As Garden Curator, he introduced new levels of maintenance and capital improvements at the Portland Japanese Garden and has created and taught workshops there.  

Marisa TAKEUCHI is the Registrar and Exhibit Coordinator for the Japanese Friendship Garden Society of San Diego. She holds a Bachelor's degree in International Studies with an emphasis on Sociology and Japanese Studies from the University of California, San Diego. Marisa manages the Garden's living and non-living collections including plants, koi, bonsai and cultural artifacts. She also manages the Garden's rotating exhibitions program and affiliated educational programming.

Dr. David SLAWSON is one of America's leading landscape artists trained in the Japanese garden tradition.  During over 40 years of garden making, writing and teaching, he has defined the leading edge of how the universal principles of this garden art form can be creatively interpreted to evoke the beauty of native landscape throughout the world. David apprenticed in Kyoto in 1971 to 1972 under Kinsaku Nakane, one of Japan's foremost 20th century garden makers. Throughout his career, David's work has continued to evolve toward the ideal of creating gardens inspired by the beauty of regional landscape and responsive to the unique attributes of the site, the client's wishes for the garden and the qualities of locally available materials. His book, "Secret Teachings in the Art of Japanese Gardens: Design, Principle, Aesthetic Values" is regarded as a classic for its presentation of landscape design principles and translation of the 15th century Japanese garden manual "Illustration for Designing Mountain, Water and Hillside Field Landscapes."  

 Alison REDFOOT is the Assistant Director for Education at the Earls Burns Miller Japanese Garden where she develops and manages public education and cultural programs and coordinates community outreach and school programs. She also oversees visitor services, supervises the garden's student docent program and volunteer corps and provides design and writing services for the garden's marketing collaterals. Her other duties involve development, fundraising and membership activities.  Alison is a visual artist and art educator who lived and taught in Japan for five years. She has a Bachelor's degree in Art History from UCLA and got her Master's degree in Asian Art from the California State University, Long Beach. She has lectured on Asian art history, studio arts topics and early childhood education at several venues.      

Edzard TEUBERT, principal of Fuzei Gardens & Tree Service Ltd. in Alberta, Canada, is a journeyman landscape designer, arborist affiliated with the International Society of Arboriculture, independent scholar and Japanese garden consultant specializing in design, maintenance and installation. He has commercially imported bonsai and exported trees to Japan and has built gardens from coast to coast across North America. He currently sits in the editorial committee of Nikkei Images (National Nikkei Museum and Heritage Center in Canada), serves as Director / Vice-President of the Japanese Garden Organization (a.k.a. Japanese Garden Forum) and is an Editor of the NAJGA Journal.  Edzard has been involved in Japanese gardening for more than 40 years, has lectured at various colleges and universities and has been conducting pruning and design workshops since the 1980's. He has also presented in numerous conferences including the International Japanese Garden Symposium in 2004.  

Dr. Jill RAGGETT is a Reader in Gardens and Designed Landscapes at Writtle College, Essex in the UK. She works in the Writtle School of Design and is also an Adjunct Professor at Canada's Dalhousie University. She was a recipient of a National Teaching Fellowship awarded by the Higher Education Academy for innovative methods of enriching student learning. Jill has researched the history of horticultural education and for her Doctoral thesis, she looked at the emergence of Japanese-style gardens in the British Isles. This has become her main focus and she collaborates with UK's Japanese Garden Society to research, record and promote the value of historic Japanese-style gardens in the British Isles. She also shares her knowledge with other entities concerned with gardens and history in the UK, and hopes to publish a book about her research sometime in the future.

Satoshi SUZUKI completed his Bachelor's degree in Architecture in Japan and works as an architect and lighting designer for both architectural and landscaping projects. Since the 1990's, he has worked in many lighting product development projects including the reproduction of lighting designs by Frank Lloyd Wright and other architects of global renown. He moved to the United States and joined HK Lighting Group's research and development in 2007.

Diane TANIGUCHI-DENNIS, P.E. is the Deputy General Manager for Clean Water Services which provides wastewater and storm water services to more than 550,000 residents of urban Washington county in Oregon. Under her leadership as Public Works Director for the City of Albany in Oregon, Albany built the award-winning and innovative 40-acre Talking Water Gardens to treat and cool water from the reclamation facility before returning the water to the Willamette River. A licensed Professional Engineer in the state of Oregon, she received a Bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York and an MBA from Willamette University in Salem, Oregon. She sits on the board of the WateReuse Association and the National Association of Clean Water Agencies.

 William "Bill" RAUCH is a Certified Public Accountant with Sundberg, Rauch, Benneth, Horner and McFetridge, CPAs, a local firm in Lebanon, Oregon. He became the first President of the Lebanon Community Hospital Foundation in 1999 and still serves in that capacity. Bill spent two years living in Japan during his college years in Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon and was instrumental in the creation of the healing garden designed by Hoichi Kurisu in the Lebanon Community Hospital.

Desirae WILLIAMS, LAIT is the Assistant Project Manager to the Garden Curator and Gardener on training at the Portland Japanese Garden. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Landscape Architecture from Colorado State University, has been involved with the establishment of NAJGA and is an active member of the design team for the Garden's Cultural Crossing Project.

Takuhiro YAMADA is the President of the Kyoto-based landscape contractor  Hanatoyo Landscape Co. Ltd. He sits on the board of the Kyoto Cooperative of Landscape Contractors and the Garden Society of Japan, and is an officer of the International Association of Japanese Gardens.  He has been involved in the restoration, improvement and maintenance work of some of the most famous and historic Japanese gardens in the world found near Kyoto: Katsura Imperial Villa, Byodo-in Temple Gardens,  Kokei-no-Niwa Garden, Tekisui-en Garden, Hongwan-ji Temple and the Ryoanji Temple.  He also built and maintained the gardens of major hospitality establishments in Kyoto: the Kyoto State Guest House, Hiragiya Inn New Annex and the Hyatt Regency Kyoto Hotel. He has also written a couple of articles for the Journal of the Japanese Institute of Landscape Architecture.

Dale SIEVERT has been working with mosses and moss gardens since 2006, when he began using them in his Japanese-style garden. He has since developed several moss gardens, including the moss garden at the Rotary Botanical Gardens in Janesville, Wisconsin, and owns one of the biggest private moss gardens in the US.  He recently toured gardens in Kyoto and went to the Adachi Museum to observe the traditional and present uses of mosses in these originative locations.  With a bachelor's degree in agronomy, he operates a nursery and landscape contracting firm aside from teaching economics for nearly 30 years in a community college.  

Richard SMITH is the author of "New Methods in Moss Gardening."  He has consulted for Japanese gardens, botanic gardens, arboretums and universities.  Rick also serves as moss consultant for Moss Acres, the largest commercial source of moss in North America. Rick also works with several leading bryologists in North America to better understand the role of mosses and other bryophytes in nature. His goal is to encourage more public gardens to integrate mosses into their garden environments.

Amy Kerr WELLS is the Manager of Camp Programs for the Chicago Botanic Garden. She supervises an eight-week summer day camp program that serves over 1,300 children annually.  Her team of 20+ highly qualified teachers and trained support staff invite children to explore science, nature, art, food and most importantly, plants using the Garden as a classroom.  In 2009, she developed school break day camp programs which take advantage of all the Garden has to offer in the winter and spring. Amy holds a Bachelor's degree in Zoology from Miami University and a Master's degree in Education from Indiana University, using her education as a classroom teacher for 10 years before stepping into community education, where she has worked with summer camp programming for the last 15 years.