As August begins, it’s time to start thinking about a lot of things — scheduling the final builds of the pond season, making that last push to exceed your bottom-line goals and — perhaps most importantly — gathering photos of your best builds of 2019 for submission to this year’s Water Artisans of the Year contest.
Now in its fourth year, POND Trade’s Water Artisans of the Year has set a new standard for independent waterscape construction projects. With the submission deadline looming in November, we have finalized the appointment of this year’s Supreme Stream Court judges to evaluate the entries.
This year’s court brings together a wide variety of the industry’s core competencies, creating one of our most well rounded panels to date. In alphabetical order, this year’s “Supreme Stream Seven” are featured below.
Dan Put owns Put’s Ponds and Gardens, a leading pond installation and maintenance company outside Detroit, Michigan. Dan has a passion for creating naturalistic water features and educating future generations of pond builders.
Gregg Sawyer knows a thing or two about the Water Artisans of the Year contest — his Grand Teton-inspired cascades won best waterfall last year. Based in Wyoming, Sawyer Waterscaping has been serving the tri-state area for almost 20 years.
Randy Stewart is a 21-year veteran of the industry and currently serves as the water feature division manager at Unit Liner Company in Shawnee, Oklahoma, with responsibilities for Pondliner.com, Pondliner Wholesale and the Water Garden Expo.
Max Taylor, also known as “the friendly guy in the Panama hat,” is a past winner and runner-up in the Best Under $15k category. As the owner of Texas-based Magnolia Ponds and Water Gardens, he has been building and designing pools and ponds since the 1980s.
Kent Wallace is a regular contributor to POND Trade, recounting his waterscape design stories in each issue’s “Best Pond Practices” feature. As the owner of Living Water Solutions in Las Vegas, he has a passion for ensuring the proper installation and design of waterscape systems.
Jeff Weemhoff is president of Atlantic Water Gardens and interim president of OASE North America (effective October 2019). Based near Cleveland, Ohio, Jeff brings more than 30 years of water garden industry experience to the judging panel.
POND Trade will begin accepting entries for the fourth annual Water Artisans of the Year contest in early fall. Stay tuned for more information!
