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The Outstanding Educator of the Year Award was developed by the PLANET Educational Excellence Foundation (PLANET AEF), in cooperation with the PLANET Accreditation Committee, to recognize professors who have made significant contributions to green industry education. Educators nominated for this award have devoted time, energy, and enthusiasm to their programs and to the education of future leaders in the industry.

2008 PLANET AEF Outstanding Educator of the Year
Rex Bishop
North Metro Technical College

The 2008 PLANET AEF Outstanding Educator of the Year is Rex Bishop, environmental horticulture instructor at North Metro Technical College (NMTC), in Acworth, Georgia. The award was presented March 30, 2008, at PLANET’s Student Career Days event, hosted by NMTC.

Under 10 years of Bishop’s guidance, the NMTC Environmental Horticulture Program has grown and provides well-rounded instruction in horticulture education, including required courses in horticultural Spanish. Leaders of the local green industry are frequently on campus teaching real-world application of horticulture topics. This relationship provides a network of internship and job opportunities.

Two years ago, Bishop laid the groundwork and fought for the establishment of the Sustainable Urban Horticulture program. He has also contributed to education by authoring AField Guide to Woody Landscape Plants of the Southeast and its Deciduous Supplement.

Steve Dougherty, president of NMTC, praises Bishop for his teaching skills. “Rex continues to be one of our most effective instructors. He reaches students with his combination of approachability, knowledge, and wealth of professional experience,” says Dougherty. “Like all really great teachers, Rex Bishop teaches by the examples he sets as much as by what he says, and he is always teaching.”

Students look to Bishop not only as an instructor but also as their guide. He is their mentor and a friend who always has a shoulder for them to lean on. His accomplishments, passion, and advocacy for students in the green industry serve as testament for his receiving this prestigious award.

Past recipients of this award were Frank Millsap of Richland College (2001), Steve Angley of Cal Poly - San Luis Obispo (2002), Martha Hill of Hinds Community College (2003), Kent Hammond of Ohio State University - Agricultural Technical Institute (2004), Grant Reid of Colorado State University (2005), Phil Allen, Ph.D. of Brigham Young University – Provo (2006), and Jack E. Ingels of State University of New York (SUNY) Cobleskill campus (2007).