THE DOUG CROWELL LECTURE SERIES
The Doug Crowell Lecture Series was established in 2012, and features guest speakers annually during the fall season who present innovative site design or sustainable projects, practices or initiatives. While each lecture may address an individual project or practice, the lecture series is open to a wide range of work within the field of Landscape Architecture. 
ABOUT DOUG CROWELL
From a young age, Doug loved working with landscapes and gardening. He left for UVM to pursue a degree in English, assuming he would be an English Literature professor one day. While at UVM, he took various jobs that allowed him to work with the land and assumed that he had found a lifelong hobby that he was passionate about. One day while preparing for a trip to climb Mt. Rainier, Doug was reading Outside Magazine, their annual edition of "20 Dream Jobs." The article served as a catalyst for him to turn his hobby into his career, and Doug was introduced to the idea of becoming a Landscape Architect.
Four years (and one military deployment to Iraq) later, Doug graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design's MLA Program. It was there that he was able to freely explore the profession under some incredible instruction. Doug was immediately drawn to sustainable design practices and philosophies that fostered the cradle-to-cradle mentality. A year into his career, Doug decided to make a move back to Vermont, as he always loved the Green Mountains and the inspiration he felt from them. He considered himself lucky to be able to come back to a state he loved and work for a firm that shared many of his same ideals, H. Keith Wagner Partnership (now Wagner Hodgson Landscape Architecture). In the four years Doug was working in Vermont, Keith Wagner and Jeff Hodgson were his mentors, challenging him in his career and helping him to further develop his own design skills. Doug was really only getting started as a landscape architect when he was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia. Ironically, he had just completed the Fletcher Allen Radiation Oncology Center green roof project when he was diagnosed with Leukemia. He spent several months in Fletcher Allen Hospital over the course of late winter and early spring. While there, Doug enjoyed being able to walk around the hospital and take in the green roof as it changed between the seasons, critiquing the firm’s work every step of the way. In many ways the green roof provided him solace, peace and a link to the land as he battled his cancer.
Doug would be elated in knowing that this Lecture Series exists today, as he was an advocate of improving continuing education opportunities during his volunteer efforts with the VTASLA. This lecture series is a way to keep him alive and connected to a profession that he so dearly loved. He felt he had found his true passion in Landscape Architecture, and was so interested in pushing sustainable design practices forward. Doug’s family and friends consider the lecture series to be a true gift to him from the VTASLA and H. Keith Wagner Partnership, and hope that others in the profession find it equally rewarding.
PAST LECTURES
2024 SPRING LECTURE
Eric Kramer, FASLA , principle at Reed Hilderbrand presented "Learning from the Cambridge, MA Urban Forestry Master Plan". The lecture included a follow up conversation with VJ Comai, Burlington City Arborist on the state of Burlington's forest.
The lecture was recorded, and is available for viewing here!
2022 LECTURE
FREDRICK LAW OLMSTED'S LEGACY
Video recording available here.
A Moderated Panel Discussion with Q and A afterwards.
Moderator – Patricia O’Donnell, FASLA, Founder, Heritage Landscapes LLC
Panelists:
- Laurie Olin, FASLA, Partner, the Olin Partnership
- Dede Petri, President, the National Association of Olmsted Parks & Olmsted 200
- Marion Pressley, FASLA, President, Pressley Associates Landscape Architects
2021 LECTURE
2019 LECTURE
2018 LECTURE
2016 LECTURE
