Although Tim teaches middle school kids for a living, one of his passions has always been plants.  He began growing orchids as an offshoot from working at Longwood Gardens in Philadelphia just after college.  From the very beginning it was all about Paphs, particularly awarded and select clones of historic importance, of which his collection numbers nearly 3000.

While he loves finding old, rare stepping stones in paph breeding, he also does a little hybridizing of his own, and finds growing up his own babies is a blast.  He is the youngest accredited judge with the American Orchid Society, and has served in various capacities with various orchid societies in California and on the East Coast.  He loves meeting other people who like orchids too, and doing so often finds him traveling to shows, vendors, and peoples’ greenhouses to see the latest and greatest in new hybrids and to get the best orchid gossip.  He likes to be involved in plants as much as possible: in addition to Longwood, he has worked at the Smithsonian Institution tending to their orchids, and for years for the United States National Arboretum, collecting rare plants and documenting cultivated species and hybrids for their herbarium.  In short, he really like plants.