LEES+Associates at 25 Years!
When Erik and Kathi Lees started LEES+Associates in 1998, he built on his long experience in horticulture, landscape design, and parks management. Erik started as part of the “Back to the Land” movement of the early 1970s. Motivated by a deep commitment to environmentalism and an interest in land systems, Erik started his “landscape” journey with a Dutch family in the Nelson area who maintained a greenhouse that grew seasonal plants. This experience led to a horticultural apprenticeship program, summer work in landscape installations, and eventually, to working for the City of Nelson, running the greenhouse for their parks during the Nelson Main Street Revitalization project of the 1980s.