Rick Spalenka

You call yourself a landscape architect in Colorado and you are not we call you a felon.  You get over it.

“Has anyone here exited the Landscape Architecture industry?’ 
I did and regret it.  I had a great DB company and made the mistake of opening a garden center.  A new nearby Big Box creamed my retail sales and mental stability.  I got out of the LA field and pursued the healthcare field.  Didn’t like that and got back in the LA field after LA lice…[Read more]

William, you mis-focused.  No where in my post did I endorse the use of less plant material in fact I did the opposite.  It’s the accusations when I hear where LA’s don’t know their plant material that irk me.  If we had the limited palette of those previous historic landscape architects and designers and their much more limited range where the…[Read more]

This discussion is getting more complicated than it’s worth.  Forget about “LAs don’t know plants” because when there are 2,500 different selections of Dianthus to choose from who gives a crap anymore.  We can’t clone a Beatrix Farrand, Andrew Downing, Garrett Eckbo, Jens Jensen, or a Frederick Law Olmsted like LA departments are trying to do…[Read more]

I spent the day yesterday schmoozing here in Western Colorado to let local architects and engineering firms know I’m still around.  Let’s see, three engineering firms closed, one architect office closed, three engineering firms with time to “chat” and the largest local LA firm down to three bodies.  A couple of phone calls with “that number has…[Read more]

With the option to have it debited monthly it’s no different than a phone or sattelite TV bill.  What’s more crazy?  You earned your way into a great profession (when things go right) so being a member of it’s professional organization is really not too much to ask.

MauiBob is absolutely correct about making money in stocks.  I guarantee I can make you money in the stock market.  Just watch very carefully what I do and DO THE OPPOSITE!.

You don’t get it Craig.  I’m not blaming the beauty of Western Colorado for our economic crisis.  When you start comparing us to Florida and other beautiful locations with regard to my argument you are out of touch.  We don’t have the population or high income mass like some places in CA, FL to support high demand for high quality design.  The loc…[Read more]

Nick, you should have called.  We have lots of room.  Speaking of small towns that need good design we have to compete against the State of Colorado that offers free community landscape architect service.  Restated, a small community will not pay for professional private LA services when they can get it from the State for free!  It’s funny you men…[Read more]

“I’m sorry Rick, but I strongly believe that you have to have a little ability to open people’s eyes to be a successful designer of anything. You might not win them all but you at least have to give it your best shot. ”
 
I’ve been involved in many community education projects and events.  See my web site under Profile.  Me, like you, have been a…[Read more]

Great advise from the pulpit not for the trenches.  I’ve been doing design work for 40 years and have heard all the “educate the public” crap I can stand.  If I have a choice between stamping a 15 shrub 1 tree design or flipping burgers I have no choice but currently being a “Stampman” since I don’t speak Spanish to qualify to flip burgers.

“If a prospective client can’t understand how spending an additional $15-20,000 on their $2,000,000 property will directly benefit them, perhaps that’s a prospective client you should walk away from.”
 
Perfect world, not real world.  I wish I can move to where I can chose and pick clients.  I can’t.  Many of our local landscape architects are fin…[Read more]

I just finished my third commercial project yesterday since our local municipality required minimum planting by code and follow Colorado’s requirement that all commercial projects be stamped by an RLA.   I’ve mentioned this code in a previous post.  I support the Colorado State requirement but I have reservations about the minimum re…[Read more]

A lot of posts here bad mouth the LARE.  Here’s an irony.  I qualified to sit for the test, attend an LARE boot camp, paid for the test and spent 3 days out of town taking it.  I passed 3 out of 5 sections.  Pretty typical really.  Had to wait 6 months to take the other two sections which I passed.  Hallaleua.  I also qualified to take the Nation…[Read more]

I owned a design/build business in Va Beach, VA.  It was very successful.  There is a threshold problem.  Gross under a million and you make money, between 1 mil and 2 mil and you find mgt and administration issues, over 2 mil and you start making money again.  Too many headaches so I sold out and moved to Colorado.  I chose Western Colo…[Read more]

Way to go Jason. I like your KISS philosophy. Circles are what was used for years and all these different graphic symbols make the drawing look childish when you are using a plan to plant shrubs. I use to own a landscape construction company and if I had to translate some symbol or abbreviation each time I wanted to locate a plant I would go nuts.…[Read more]

Thomas makes many great points that can be debated. I wrote on another discussion in this forum where I know of a high school drop out who made it big in landscape construction and was hiring two LA’s with master degrees. I was in the design build business for a combined 20 years and made better money acting like a general contractor and sub…[Read more]

Josh – The Western Slope is mis understood. I live south of Grand Junction and it’s called the banana belt for good reason. Our climate is more, much more moderate than Denver with more, not less sunshine. Actuarary studies show the line from Montrose to Grand Junction is the safest area from natural disasters in the US. My e-mail address is…[Read more]

What are you looking for? If it’s a solid relationship with your wife you have few options. My wife and I moved here from Virginia 15 years ago. The front range/Denver area was too much like what we were trying to escape from so we settled on the Western Slope. It’s much more laid back here but that can be a detriment. The quantitiy of refined…[Read more]

In all fairness, I did check out the University of Colorado Denver MLA program and it does look very intense and inclusive. Maybe my opinion is outdated or the academic world felt the same as me in the past and changed things. Go MLA.