Victor Stanley
Emma Skalka, Vice President and General Manager of Victor Stanley
What inspired your organization to support TCLF, and how does it align with your mission?
We were introduced to TCLF by Ann Looper and were immediately hooked for three reasons:
- At the time, our leadership consisted of two people whose parents had fled Europe just before WWII, and one person who had grown up in Europe in the wake of that same war. All three shared a deep belief that we cannot truly understand ourselves — or make strategic decisions — without understanding our history. TCLF’s mission to make invisible cultural landscapes visible deeply resonated with both past and current leadership at Victor Stanley.
- Passion is contagious. When we first met with Charles, it quickly became clear that TCLF’s mission wasn’t just something we cared about — it was something they were fully committed to carrying out. We could also see that we would be kept informed about how our sponsorship was used and the outcomes it helped achieve.
- TCLF offered a space with limited competing co-sponsors — not, as Charles memorably put it, “a cluster-eff of sponsors.”
How does partnering with TCLF advance your commitment to sustainable design and innovative landscapes?
In multiple ways — primarily because we form personal friendships with landscape architects through TCLF, which helps us gain valuable insights into the trends they’re seeing and what matters most to them.
What aspects of TCLF’s work resonate most with you, and why?
WOT won my heart from the moment I heard an attendee say she had driven three hours to visit a Japanese garden in Florida. The garden was typically too expensive for this single mom to visit with her 5-year-old daughter, but the fact that it was free that weekend through WOT made it possible for them to go.
I also think the program is a brilliant way of making the invisible visible. Not only does it connect guests to cultural landscapes, but it also fosters connections between people in those spaces — and with the field of landscape architecture itself. The way it’s carried out fills so many gaps.
Whenever I participate in a WOT weekend, I walk around and ask people what drew them to the event. The stories I hear are incredibly varied, but they all share one thing in common: a desire to better understand the outdoor environment in their own hometown.