Reply To: Who is going to take your place when you retire?

[AR Coffeen]

This is good stuff, i like to rant myself, so here I go.

Preface: I just graduated with my MLA in May, I have established relationships with the principals of every LA firm in town, I am the Treasurer of the NMASLA, I network through my connections at the school and local governments, I volunteer and I still can’t get a job in the LA field, design build places won’t even hire me because my only landscaping experience is through the school and my side projects. So, to help pay the bills I have turned to part time Cost Segregation Accounting (more aligned with my undergrad degree).

It’s hard to stay optimistic that something will come up and it’s challenging to be enthused about a profession that just takes the punches of a bad economy. Instead now is the time to invest in the future, hire young talent that you can train and grow so when you retire they too have 40 years of experience and can carry on the legacy of your name and company, go after new work, distinguish yourself from the competition, and start throwing punches. Take work back from the architects, planners, environmental ecologist, engineers, etc…

I realize it’s our own (landscape architects) fault for not materializing the benefits of landscape design in a more tangible, dollars and cents, type of way like these other professions do and as a result the value of our work is rarely being seen. This causes landscapes to be the first to get cut from the budget and the last things to be considered on a majority of projects. If we can better monetize the value of our work we will be able to better justify and sell our skills.

I am working on this, I’ve been studying monetary values of landscape and how to place monetary benefits on a more complete relationship between land and structure (place). It helps fill in the other part of my time, when i am not working as a cost segregation accountant…

good luck to you all!