Alexandria, VA – Ashlie Tagawa Mohr has been appointed as the newest member of the American Floral Endowment’s(AFE) Vic & Margaret Ball Intern Scholarship Committee. She is currently the Director of Human Resources and Intern Coordinator for Tagawa Greenhouses in Brighton, Colorado, where her focus is on staffing, training, and employee relations.
In her new role on the Ball Committee, Mohr will be working with industry, faculty, and the Ball Family representative to review student applications for the Vic & Margaret Ball Intern Scholarship Program and help promote the program to students. She will be helping the future generation of industry leaders to understand first-hand the lasting effects of this great program.
In 1992, Vic and Margaret Ball made a generous donation to AFE to establish this program for students to apply classroom knowledge, and give students the opportunity to gain practical, hands-on floriculture/horticulture experience through a three, four, or six-month paid internship at a commercial production greenhouse or nursery.
Before joining her family business, Mohr graduated with a degree in English Linguistics and a minor in Japanese from Colorado State University in 2013. Her love for languages brought her to work abroad in Japan for six months as an English Conversational Teacher before returning to the United States to start her career in Human Resources.
With the birth of her daughter (Reina, age 7), Mohr decided to return to the Brighton area and started working for Tagawa Greenhouses. Tagawa Greenhouses is one of the largest young plant suppliers in North America through Ball Horticultural, serving over 2700 greenhouses and garden centers. Not only this, but Tagawa Greenhouses has had a long tradition of working with interns and graduate trainees even as far back as the 1980s to help aspiring leaders grow a passion for the horticultural industry. In the early years, the company was involved with a program in Japan to help young adults to learn about US production. As time went on, Mohr’s grandfather, Ken Tagawa, began working with AFE and continued this tradition. Now as a third-generation family member, as well as the intern coordinator with Tagawa Greenhouses, Mohr continues this tradition by training and interacting with students to try to best support their individual careers/learning.
“At Tagawas, I think we’ve always understood that the future of the industry depends on the future generations. My grandpa always says that if we bring up the industry, it will bring all of us up together. Thus, I want to make sure that whenever interns (or any of our employees) spend part of their careers with us, that they have the opportunity to be successful and find their time with us beneficial,” Mohr said.
“Sometimes our interns will come back to us as future growers and managers, but other times they come back to us as our suppliers, vendors, partners, customers, or experts in the field. And, it’s exciting to be a part of their stories. The motto around here is ‘WE GROW,’ and so I usually joke that since I’m not the best at growing flowers, that’s why they put me in charge of the people. But I like being in the business of growing with people, and to me that’s the best part of our internship and training programs – I end up learning so much from the different people and ideas that they have when given the space to grow.“
To learn more about this program or to become a host employer, click here.
About AFE
The American Floral Endowment is the industry’s trusted source and catalyst for floriculture advancement through funding of innovative research, scholarships, internships, and educational grants that best serve the dynamic needs and demographics of all industry sectors. Help AFE continue to support floriculture programs now and in the future. To learn more about AFE or make a tax-deductible contribution, visit www.endowment.org.
