I’m very happy to introduce you to my new friend and the newest addition to the General Hydroponics sales team at our headquarters in Sebastopol, California: Andy. He works every day taking tech calls, responding to emails, and placing orders.

Andy is an amazing resource for GH because he is a devoted, experienced, and knowledgeable grower. He has 6 years of academic hydroponic achievements and a BA in environmental studies with a minor in geography and urban studies. Andy has long been fascinated with hydro, and chose to write his senior thesis on Urban Sustainability of Hydroponic Crop Production. Part of that process was teaching an entire team of people about how to garden without soil and expirimenting with different methods and techniques. He then applied to building a UV filtered, gravity driven, NFT hydrosystem for Temple University.

He is also going to be contributing sometimes to the GrowGH blog, and so it’s going to be really great to get to know him in a way that goes beyond just hydro. Andy is 1/5th the board of directors for the Muddy River Jam Festival. Its a 3 day musical event happening 7 miles from Philadelphia in Salem County. The festival is in its 6th year, and this year is estimated to double attendance from the 800 who made it out to dance and camp last year. The Muddy River Jam sound is based on the electronic-jamband-expirimental-dj national touring acts that fuel the Philly area, including Telepath, BioDiesel, Indobox and the MJ Project. Check it out at muddyriverjam.com

Everyone here is glad to have Andy as part of our sales team, and I am glad to finally and officially say. “Welcome!”

Shawn Glidden

Title: Shipping Manager

Number of Years with GH:  3

Shawn was practicaly headhunted for the position by Larry, just as his previous employeer was shuttering it’s doors, and as he puts it, “It’s a perfect fit.” Working as the shipping manager for a company like ours is no easy task. Shawn’s job sounds simple:  make sure everything we produce is shipped. Except that means working with each distributor and every store! He has 25 different carriers, and sometimes as many as 15 trucks out. To keep track of everything, he keeps a calendar and massive amounts of records.  Needless to say, organization isn’t his favorite part of working at GH. Instead, he loves that he can act as his own boss, and that he is constantly practicing the fine art of negotiation. It’s his most crucial skill.

Shawn’s family includes his wife Phaedra, and sons Sawyer and Nicholas. He met Phaedra on Yahoo! Personals, incredibly enough! Once they found love, they had just about the coolest wedding ever, at Safari West, a local animal preserve with giraffes and zebras and cheetahs. At home he keeps things a little more ordinary, with a garden with vines, perennials, tomatoes, and his favorite, sunflowers.

Things are  still exciting in his life though, with Shawn and Phaedra making an appearance this Friday on the Dog Whisperer! They have two border collies, Boo and Khia, with Khia known to lunge at bicyclists and bark like crazy. Shawn and Phaedra submitted a tape, and were selected to spend an entire day with the team of the show. I don’t want to give away any spoilers, but Khia has really transformed since!

Tune in to see Shawn and his family on the Dog Whisperer, this Friday, the 11th, at 9pm on the National Geographic Channel. You’ll be able to recognize him by his General Hydroponics hoodie! In fact, this won’t be the first time GH apparel has been on the Dog Whisperer. Our lotus t-shirt was worn in the episode “Chihuahuas from Hell!” We want to give out even more shirts, so we will send out a GH T-Shirt to 5 people who leave a comment on this thread. The contest won’t be closed until next Tuesday, and we will announce the winners then! Good Luck!

UPDATE: Due to Shawn’s accident, and our desire to just stoke out as many people as possible…. ALL COMMENTS WIN!!!!!!!!