The authors of articles in POND Trade Magazine.

Author biographies and links to the articles they have written for the POND Trade industry magazine.

Leo Babauta

Leo Babauta is married with six kids, he lives on Guam, he is a writer and a runner and a vegetarian, and the owner of Zen Habits. He also is the author of a new best-selling book, “The Power of Less: The Fine Art of Limiting Yourself to the Essentials … in Work and in Life.“ If you want Zen Habits’ philosophy in a handy little volume, please buy the book.

Zen Habits is one of the Top 100…

Rick Bartel

Rick Bartel; a twenty year experienced veteran water feature contractor; is the current administrator and primary instructor for the Savio Water Feature Institute whose industry wide popularity of advanced educational seminars has literally redefined the water feature installation industry.

Mark Battersby

With 25 years of professional experience in the fields of taxes and finance enable Mr. Battersby to write on unique and topical subjects. Although no reputable professional should ever render specific advice at arm’s length, he does craft unbiased, interesting, informative, and accurate articles.

Mr. Battersby currently writes for publications in a variety of fields. His topical columns are syndicated…

Jamie Beyer

The very popular subject of adding water features to a garden is one that Jamie Beyer brings a lot of knowledge and enthusiasm to. Jamie is a Lifetime Master Gardener from the Ames/Boone area and is founder and President of the Central Iowa Water Garden Association. Water gardening has been a passion of Jamie’s for over 45 years and, currently, he has three 10,000 gallon ponds and one 27,000 pond which…

Paula Biles

Paula Biles was diagnosed at an early age with CPO (chronic plant obsession) and after graduate school the condition became severe. The constant compulsion to have growing leaves and muddy hands led to an obvious treatment – water gardening.

Her therapy involved a steady dose of teaching and writing about water gardens and aquatics. Rehabilitation was slow at first, but before long she was lecturing,…

Kelly Billings and Paula Biles

Kelly Billings and Paula Biles worked together on the About the Lotus article. They have also contributed their own articles in other issues.

Kelly Billing

Kelly Billing has over 20 years experience in the water gardening industry wholesale trade working for Maryland Aquatic Nurseries, Inc. She compiled and maintains the Aquatic Plant Invasive Species List for the nursery trade in the United States.

Kelly is a Maryland Certified Professional Horticulturist. She writes regularly for various trade magazines, the International Waterlily & Water Gardening…

Mark Bodycott

Mark Bodycott – years ago on a whim I built a water garden in my backyard. I became more and more interested in ponds and water gardens, I was hooked! I went to a new store (at the time) Quality Koi to check it out. After spending some time at the store they offered me a part-time job. Cool right?

So there I was 28 years old thinking about a major career change while I netted Koi and backwashed…

Brady Brandwood

Brady Brandwood began Lotus Land Koi Farm in 1997, a 10-acre facility in Marshville, NC. He breeds Gosanke primarily, Kohaku, Showa, Sanke, but also produces Yamabuki Ogon, Chagoi, Kujaku, and Hariwake.

Brady has become one of the most respected Koi breeders outside of Japan, with an incredible list of Koi Show wins including Mature Champion, Adult Champion, Young Grand Champions, Baby Grand Champions,…

Denise Corcoran

Business and Leadership Coach, Strategist and CEO, The Empowered Business™ – assists emerging companies to reach the top of their business game and develop world-class leadership teams, organizations and cultures.

Matt Corino

Matt Corino is the owner of Sugar Loaf Koi – NYKOI.com. He has been in business for over 18 years. Matt started in koi when he was only 14 years old, studying koi at one of Englands largest Koi centers. At 18 he took his first trip to Japan, where he studied under Sakai Isawa, then Shintaro.

Sugar Loaf Koi is a family owned business located near New York City in Campbell Hall, NY.

Spike Cover

Spike Cover is a mechanical engineer by education and training but, by his own admission, he is a life long “fish geek” who is self-taught in koi health. He was the Director of both the AKCA’s Koi Health Advisor program and Project KHV.

David Curtright

David owns pondplants.com in San Diego County and has been in the aquatic plant business for 30 years.

He is also the current President of the Southern California Water Garden Society.

Sarah Ellis

Sarah Ellis is an education outreach specialist for Ewing Irrigation Products, a distributor of water features, low-voltage lighting, hardscaping, water management solutions, commercial and residential irrigation supplies, landscape and agronomic products and industrial plastics.

Mike Garcia

Mike Garcia founder of Enviroscape began his career in the horticultural field more than 25 years ago. After earning his college degree in Ornamental Horticulture, he earned his C-27 Landscape Contractors License, as well as his D-49 arborist Tree Service Contractors License. Under his leadership, Enviroscape has won numerous landscape and water feature awards at the local, state, national and international levels

Tom Graham

Tom built his first pond in the early 70s. After graduating college with a degree in Psychology, he spent a summer with a friend building ponds as a small business. With little experience and no guidance, he quickly decided one summer of that was enough. (There were no companies making pond specific products at that time.) He went into sales in the home audio business, then the Audio Visual industry,…

Cindy Graham

Cindy married into the koi hobby - little did she know. Tom and she bought their first house in 1982 and Tom immediately begin building their first koi pond (during the winter). They joined the Koi Club of San Diego in 1985. Cindy has actively participated in the club, including serving as the club’s President for two years. She also belongs to the Southern California Water Garden Society, the Inland…

Malcolm Green

Malcolm Green has been in the koi hobby for over 20 years and has spent 28 years involved with construction materials testing and water quality monitoring businesses in the UK and USA.

He started Koi Water Garden Ltd in 1996 and has been visiting Japan from the early 90s to select koi initially for his private collection and then to meet the needs of the business.

Pam Greiner

Pam Greiner founded The Green Pen five years ago as the result of a passion for gardening and the environment. Focused on providing online, and off, marketing solutions, our active client list includes several contractors, retailers, and distributors across the country. Our advice is regularly sought by many other contractors and businesses in the Green Industry, as well as other industries. Our services…

Shaun Kelly

Shaun Kelly is a 20+ year veteran of the Aquatic Industry having performed roles in both the US and UK Pond markets for many years including residing in the US for nearly two years.

Currently Founder and President of both United Aquatics, LLC In the United States and United Aquatics, Ltd in the United Kingdom. Hence the United theme.

His companies Import & Export different Pond products between…

Dale Klamfoth

Dale Klamfoth is Vice President and Managing Director of Communispond, Inc, which provides businesses with training and coaching in selling, presentations and communications.

Mamoru Kodama

Mamoru Kodama is an expert in the Koi industry, an author, and the owner of Miyoshiike Co., Ltd. He has been invited to speak as a guest lecturer several times by international Koi clubs within the United States, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, etc. He was a guest speaker at the AKCA seminar 2002, Concord, California and AKCA Seminar 2009, San Diego, California.

His approach to the beauty of koi…

Sarah Martinez

Sarah Martinez is managing editor of Garden Center Magazine, a trade publication for independent garden retailers.

Mat McCann

Mat McCann has kept koi from the age of seven. When Mat was 16, he was asked to spend a weekend babysitting a koi dealership that was managed by a friend of the family.

Mat loved working in the store, and he started working for them every weekend while he was in high school. Because of his love for koi, Mat went into the Aquaculture program when he was accepted at Liverpool University.

Long…

Chris Moore

For over 35 years, Chris has been interested in the flora and fauna of ponds. All experience for the first 15 years was learned at the ponds edge – like, OK, that’s not going to work. Selling water lilies to the public out of a little pond was quite interesting, as I had no idea which of the cultivars they were. When it came to koi, I was enthralled with koi from the pet stores. I consider myself…

Anita Nelson

Anita Nolan Nelson, Horticulturist, has always loved plants, as child she was fascinated by all the colors, shapes and forms of plants and still is to this day. Although she has done all the accomplishments listed below, Anita is proudest of the fact she has a garden and is still learning and still making mistakes.

Co-founder of Nelson Water Gardens & Nursery, Inc., with her husband Rolf Nelson,…

Curt Nuenighoff

Curt Nuenighoff, TetraPond, serves as the pond products manager and is responsible for product development, business strategy, merchandising and marketing in North America. Nuenighoff earned an MBA from the University of New Haven and a BS from the University of Connecticut in Marketing.

TetraPond is an international leader in water gardening products, with its US headquarters in Blacksburg, VA….

John Olson

John Olson is the CEO of Graystone Industries and an avid alligator wrestler. Graystone is a distributor for over a dozen brands of quality pond supplies with warehouse and retail locations in GA and NC as well as an internet store at www.graystonecreations.com.

John resides at Rosemont Estate in north Georgia with his wife and two children. When not riding go carts, gold mining, or trout fishing…

Joe Pawlak

Joe Pawlak is the founder of Blackwater Creek Koi Farms Inc., a group of three farms located throughout Florida. He has experience raising over 30 varieties of koi on an annual basis. Butterfly koi production is a passion for Joe. “If it’s a challenge, I really want to do it. Family, Business, and Koi are a combination I truly love.”

Peter Prestipino

Peter Prestipino is the Editor-in-Chief of Website Magazine, a print publication offering practical advice on how to achieve Web success through SEO, SEM, web design and development.

Jim Purcell

Jim Purcell began growing and retailing pond plants in the spring of 1980, and soon began wholesaling to other retailers. In 1987 he opened Jim’s Water Gardening as a wholesale aquatic nursery, supplying pond plants and supplies throughout the US. Verena Liechti became managing partner in the business a few years ago, and they changed its name to Oregon Aquatics, Inc.

The nursery now covers 7…

Gretchen Rubin

I’m Gretchen Rubin. I started out as a lawyer. At Yale Law School, I was editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal and won a writing prize. I went on to clerk for Justice Sandra Day O’Connor on the U.S. Supreme Court.

I had a great experience in law, but I realized that what I really wanted to do was to write. Since making the switch, I’ve published four books. I’m currently working on The…

Jeff Rugg

Jeff Rugg, MLA, ASLA is a horticulture educator for the University of Illinois Extension Service. With degrees in science, zoology, horticulture and landscape architecture, Jeff uses his many interests to help and train others. He has managed garden centers in Texas and Illinois. He owned a water garden and wild bird nature store that sold pond equipment, koi, goldfish and water garden plants.

He…

John Russell

John Russell is the CEO & Founder of Russell Watergardens & Koi, and Russell Technologies of Redmond, WA.

Dick Schuck

Richard (Dick) Schuck graduated from Johns Hopkins University in 1961 with a BES in Engineering and from George Washington University in 1966 with a Masters in Engineering Administration.

He has been involved in the field of aquatic plants for most of his 70 years both as a hobbyist and businessman. Before starting his business, Dick worked in the defense industry and government as an industrial…

Jayne Southard

Jayne Southard lives in the UK with her husband and two sons and has been working in the aquatic magazine/publishing industry since 2002. Writing for UK publications on pond and aquarium topics regularly, she is a freelance writer with a general knowledge of the industry.

Steve Stroupe

Steve Stroupe has been actively involved in the US water garden industry since 1987 when he started Davis Creek Nursery, a wholesale aquatic plant nursery and distribution company…which managed to endure for an amazing 12 year run. Additionally, Steve designed and/or co-designed a number of aquatic plant containers shortly after transitioning the industry from “Tucker Tubs” to professional, no-hole…

Mike Swize

Mike has been growing water lilies and aquatic plants for over 20 years. He worked for several years at Strawn Water Gardens while obtaining a degree in Horticulture from Texas A&M University. He is now the head grower and part owner of Nelson Water Gardens in Katy, Texas. Mike also is a board member of the International Waterlily and Water Gardening Society.

Cyndie Thomas

Cyndie Thomas is a Denver, Colorado native with 20 years’ experience water gardening at a mile high, with cold winters and a short growing season. She shares her intense passion for water gardening through educational programs at local nurseries, garden centers and garden clubs along Colorado’s Front Range. As Colorado Water Garden Society President for 7 years, and continuing to this day, she has…

Eric Triplett

Eric Triplett owns and operates The Pond Digger, Waterscape Design and Construction Company, based in Redlands, California. The Pond Digger specializes in ‘Touching Peoples Lives With Water’ with ecologically friendly, low-maintenance, waterscapes for fish and aquatic plants, but more importantly, for people!

Vicki Vaughan

Vicki Vaughan has been involved in fish medicine for 15 years. She was director of the SPF Aquaculture Facility at the College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Georgia.

She now owns and operates KOILAB which is a full service reference laboratory involved with the diagnosis and treatment of fish related illnesses. KOILAB also manufactures and distributes fish medications. Vicki developed and…

Heather Woolf

Heather Woolf is the owner and operator of Aquatic Escapes in Chattanooga, TN. Aquatic Escapes specializes in water feature construction, repair, design, and maintenance.