Raising the bar through sharing knowledge

 

Mentor Moment: Leslie Cornell
Interview by Karina Sinclair

 

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To Leslie Cornell, a career in horticulture isn’t just about growing plants — it’s about nurturing a community of people and their passion for gardening. Cornell owns and operates Cornell Design and Landscaping, a full service company including a garden centre and greenhouse in Moose Jaw, Sask. In addition, Cornell devotes time and energy volunteering within the landscaping community. She is a past president for Landscape Saskatchewan, and has held leadership roles within various CNLA committees.

To serve her hometown of Moose Jaw, Sask., Cornell fostered a collaborative connection between the local tourism board and Communities in Bloom. Cornell’s project management skills kept the Humboldt HUGS garden initiative on track during the pandemic, which led to HUGS winning the CNLA Green for Life Community Award in 2022. We asked Cornell to share her thoughts on how participating in the community can raise the perception and value of landscape professionals.

How do you find the time and energy to volunteer while also running a business?

What drives me is the desire to help people, not in a charity way, but in helping people help themselves. I help people every day in my business, like my staff. I provide jobs for them and I teach them the skills they need to do their job well and be proud of what they do. When I volunteer, I have the same purpose driving me. How can I help to empower change for the better? Connecting people and plants is a mission that I have that has many paths. Volunteering opens so many more opportunities to develop that connection.

What prompted you to expand your volunteer efforts into your local community?

To help grow my business, it was important that I connect to the people in town. They need to see me. I realized that I wasn’t doing any volunteer work in my city. So I decided to get involved with tourism. But then I got involved with Communities in Bloom and I realized I’m only one person — I can only do so much. So I stepped strongly into Communities in Bloom and then pulled tourism people to sit on our committee. And the goal is to get people out and involved and get them realizing their city is valuable. Again, rewarding for me, but still trying to give something back for what I’ve been given.

How has chairing the Apprenticeship Trade Board for Landscape Horticulturists helped raise the perception and value of skilled trades workers in Saskatchewan?

We don’t have a training facility here in Saskatchewan so the landscape horticulturalists have always gone to Olds College in Alberta for their training. In 2018, our local trade board developed an online training program so our apprentices can participate in-province and at home. This has opened doors for many people who could not leave the province to take formal training. And our board won the Outstanding Trade Board award in 2019 from the Saskatchewan Apprenticeship and Trade Certification Commission (SATCC) for developing this online training program. The first two employees I put through training who went to Olds are also now on the Trade and Curriculum boards as well.

Why is it important to support skill development within your own staff?

When you’ve had formal training, you get taught the value of what you are doing and you value things a little differently. So formal training is always top of mind for me.
I have supported two of my very first employees through apprenticeship training and they are both Journeyman Red Seal and still with my company today. And I’ve got a lady right now who’s taking the Prairie Horticulture Certificate Course in the greenhouse stream. I love it when I have been working with a person that’s unsure of what they’re trying to do, and then the lights come on and they get it. I can see how the person is so proud of their accomplishments and that is my reward: empowering them.

What advice do you have for anybody who wants to pursue this green career?

Connect yourself with the people who empower you and help you be the best person you can be. Work with somebody else before you decide to start your own company, because you need to have a mentor. Get involved in the association. If you want to just start straight off, fine, but get training, get involved. With apprenticeship training, by design, you have to work for somebody else anyway, because it works. On-the-job training is the best way to learn anything.

What advice can you offer your peers who have the opportunity to mentor others?

I never really thought of myself as a mentor, although as soon as we get talking about it, I’m like, of course I am. Know and accept that you are a mentor and make sure that you are doing the best you can for others because you are powerful and you have to be good to people because you just don’t always know how influential you are.