Drew Becher has been described as the kind of guy who sees something and immediately wants to try and make it look better, especially when it comes to landscaping and greenery. While that might be off-putting to some, it has made Chicago Mayor Richard Daley and legendary actress and singer Bette Midler among Becher’s biggest fans.
Add the
Pennsylvania Horticultural Society to that list. The Philadelphia-based nonprofit announced earlier this month that Becher, 40, will replace the retiring Jane Pepper as its president. Becher has long admired PHS and its annual
Philadelphia International Flower Show, the internationally renowhorned annual event that runs Feb. 28-March 7 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center.
Becher comes to Philly from Manhattan, where he was executive director of Midler’s nonprofit the
New York Restoration Project since 2006 and became a respected leader in the city’s greening and beautification scene. He also spearheaded the city’s
MillionTreesNYC greening initiative. He has a diverse and active background, working as deputy director for the Washington D.C. Office of Planning and as chief of staff for the Chicago Park District.
Now that the Ohio native will be living full-time in the Chestnut Hill section of the city, he’s also anxious to do some overdue landscaping at his home--and perhaps all around the neighborhood. Becher talked to Keystone Edge about why greening is important and his agenda as he replaces the well-respected Pepper, who will step down on June 1 after 29 years leading the organization.
Keystone Edge (KE): How much did you work with Bette Midler and what was it like?Drew Becher (DB): It was great. I still work with her very closely. We’ve become good friends throughout my tenure there. We have a lot of the same goals and aspirations for what we want our cities to look like. She’s great and the passion just exudes from her. I‘ve learned a lot from her and I think she’s learned a lot from me as well. I’ll see if we can get her down here for the flower show as well.
KE: The Flower Show has been so successful for so long. How do you continue that?DB: If it’s on autopilot it’s going to fail. I don’t think it’s on autopilot. It should always be reinventing itself. I think that something we’re going to work on is the show has gone through so many changes in its lifetime and it’s going to continue to evolve. This will be the fourth or fifth one I’ve been to. I used to bring all my staff and we’d get ideas on how to do things. It was inspirational. One thing
I’d like to see us work on is getting out our message a little more in the show and in some sort of cool way about the impact the Horticultural Society has and what the Flower Show enables the Horticultural Society to do for communities.
KE: What impresses you most about PHS?DB: I think the people and the passion is what I’ve always loved about this organization and after meeting the staff and getting to see the programs, it has exceeded my expectations for the type of person that works here. I think Jane should be complimented on that. It’s the people who make programs and the difference, so I’m really excited about getting to work with them.
On the flip side, one of the things that can probably use some attention is I’m a big believer in technology and helping spread the word, getting things to work better and getting more people involved. I think I’d look at bringing technology into the fold a little more. One of the things that’s near to my heart is tree-planting, so we’ll really be focusing on doing more of that throughout the region. It’s really important for storm water reasons as well as beautification.
KE: Throughout the state, and in Philadelphia in particular, there is considerable movement in the area of greening our cities. Where would you like PHS to fit in, considering it has already played a significant role?DB: I would love PHS to become the leader, and I think organizations that are outside of government always have the ability to be more out front or take a little more risk on some of the ideas that can make things happen. I hope (Mayor Nutter’s) administration can use PHS in this way. It is a big partnership. I know from working in New York and creating the MillionTrees initiative that there’s no better way than having a great public-private partnership.
KE: What do you consider the strongest part of your green thumb?DB: I do vegetables here and there, but it’s more of the overall landscaping component. That’s one of the things I learned in my college career in urban planning. It was really focused on landscaping and greening as being one of the most important factors of overall streetscape or urbanscape. That’s what I introduced in my professional career--greening and parks are necessities, not niceties.
People’s reaction to it is the thing. It’s amazing, one of the first times we did it on a big scale was when I was in high school and most people had no idea what changed, they just thought it looked better. When I was in college, we did a big tree planting along McMillan Street in Cincinnati, where all the bars are near the university and people were like “Wow, McMillan Street looks so much better.” Some people knew we planted trees, others knew it inherently looked cleaner and nicer. That was an a-ha moment, that the biggest bang for your bucks comes from landscaping, trees and greenery, and it can really change space.
Joe Petrucci is managing editor of Keystone Edge. Send feedback here.To receive Keystone Edge free every week, click
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