We are pleased to introduce the 2025 ASLA President-Elect Candidates Jennifer Nitzky, FASLA, and Gretchen Wilson, ASLA.

Jennifer L. Nitzky, FASLA, PLA, ISA

Biographical Statement:
Jennifer Nitzky is a leader who is extremely passionate about advancing the profession and energized in her practice by creating thriving community places. She is a dedicated member of ASLA, actively involved since graduate school serving in several leadership positions including 2-terms as Chapter President, Trustee, Communications Chair, and Fellows Nominating Chair. At the national level, Jennifer plays a key role on several committees including Public Awareness, Education, and Skill/Ed. Most recently she served as Professional Awards Jury Chair.

Jennifer is a Landscape Architect and Certified Arborist with over 27 years of practice in Chicago and New York. Working in small and large firms, multi-disciplinary practices, and public agencies has provided her with a broad understanding of the profession. As Design Principal of Studio HIP, she is skilled in community-oriented design, facilitating hands-on activities. Since 2002 she has helped the Trust for Public Land transform asphalt New York City schoolyards into green community playgrounds through student-led participatory design at over 225 schools. This five-week program empowers students to create their own environments, inspiring future landscape architects.

With a passion for expanding awareness of the profession, Jennifer brings environmental issues to the fore through youth and community engagement. She is actively involved in ASLA’s inaugural ‘Committee on K-12 Education and Career Discovery’ and ‘Dream Big with Design’ initiatives.

Keen to identify future leaders, and those deserving of recognition, she leads efforts to spotlight ASLA members in various media formats and opportunities, allowing their stories to be told. Notably, over the past decade, Jennifer has successfully nominated dozens of fellows, medal, and honor recipients.

Jennifer has been tirelessly engaged in local public service and volunteer efforts. She is Vice President of the Fine Arts Federation of NY, an Urban Design Forum Fellow, a member of the NYC Pollinator Working Group, and formerly on Community Board 7. Jennifer Collaborated with the NYC Public Design Commission to publish the impactful document “Designing New York: Streetscapes for Wellness.”

Jennifer grew up in Michigan, earned a B.S. in Architectural Design at Bowling Green State University, and a Master of Landscape Architecture at Ball State University.

Goals and Directions Statement:
ASLA aims to amplify members' voices, practices, and businesses to create healthy, beautiful, and resilient places for all. As ASLA advances its 2025-2027 strategic plan goals and addresses the evolving needs of our members, communities, and environment, we can lean into challenges to strengthen our profession. Through elevating awareness, growing our profession, and supporting our members to thrive, we will deepen our value as landscape architects.

Elevating Awareness
ASLA is the voice for landscape architecture, leading the profession and its commitment to climate action in the communities we serve to ensure design excellence and resilience. We have the opportunity to utilize our leadership, research, and knowledge to demonstrate the value of landscape architecture in advancing climate action, deepening the understanding of our profession. ASLA can accomplish this using easy-to-understand visuals along with compelling stories, narratives and data-driven facts in a broad range of media outlets. A firm understanding of landscape architecture in the community at large will ultimately lead to growth in our profession and business opportunities.

Growing the profession
The future of our profession begins with students. Receiving STEM designation and ASLA’s Design Academy for K-12 Educators are two big steps toward awareness and career discovery. We need to ensure that the recruitment of new students into college continues to grow. We can do this by expanding the pipeline using career prep programs for high school students, feeder programs into local colleges, expanding scholarship and grant opportunities to help make receiving an education accessible, and supporting ASLA student chapters to empower future leaders.

Supporting our members
Members are ASLA’s greatest asset. ASLA is dedicated to helping its membership stay innovative, creative, and relevant. With the fluidity of the profession and the growing challenges we face, it is important that we continue to evolve in ways that support our members. Providing the resources and tools needed to thrive, especially for smaller and under-resourced firms, will empower landscape professionals to shine. It is important to lift up and recognize our members at all career stages, celebrate the diversity of our members, and reach all members where they are to strengthen our society as a whole.

Gretchen Wilson, ASLA, PLA, LEED AP, WEDG

Biographical Statement:
Gretchen is dedicated to using the practice of landscape architecture to connect diverse communities, improve health, restore ecosystems, and build resilience. As co-founder of Dig Studio, she helped the firm grow from four to forty-four employees in 12 years, fostering a culture of creativity, collaboration, and innovation. Her work primarily focuses on public sector projects, often benefiting under-invested communities and combining recreational spaces with public infrastructure investments. A leader in public engagement, Gretchen designs inclusive strategies that empower communities and drive meaningful change.

As an active ASLA leader, Gretchen has contributed significantly in various roles. As Colorado Chapter Secretary (2021), she modernized bylaws and award categories. As Colorado Trustee (2021–24), she championed professional growth and public awareness while serving on the Jane Silverstein Ries Foundation. She has led regional webinars on gender parity (2021) and climate resilience (2022) and is currently serving on the 2025 Annual Conference Education Advisory Committee. Gretchen’s award-winning work, recognized by multiple ASLA chapters, addresses health and equity in underserved communities.

Beyond ASLA, Gretchen advises the CU Denver Master of Urban Design program and co-teaches design studios, fostering a passion for cross-disciplinary education and research in landscape architecture, health, engineering, ecology, and water systems. She has contributed to pro bono community food system initiatives with Denver Urban Gardens, Clayton Early Learning Center, and The GrowHaus. An LSU Robert Reich School of Landscape Architecture alum, she will complete a Master of Science in Environmental Science (Water Systems and Ecosystems Specializations) in 2025. Her expertise has influenced discussions on government water policy as a member of the ASLA National Water Experts Panel.

Gretchen is enthusiastic about inspiring students, practitioners, policymakers, clients, and the public to recognize the transformative power of landscape architecture and the value it brings to people’s everyday lives. She believes ASLA is essential in expanding this awareness. With her experience in engagement, strategy, and leadership, she will lead with curiosity, creativity, and collaboration to elevate ASLA’s mission, ensuring it continues to inspire and add value to our profession.

Goals and Direction Statement:
As Robin Wall Kimmerer writes in Braiding Sweetgrass, "Restoring land without restoring relationship is an empty exercise." This belief is at the core of my passion for landscape architecture: reconnecting people to the land and to each other is as essential as restoring the land itself. Together, we can change the world.

I am grateful to ASLA’s leadership in building an outstanding organization that helps us be our best, while also elevating our voices in the world, and standing up for all that we do. ASLA helps us achieve our vision of a better world through landscape architecture - standing up for our core mission as stewards of the land.

Together we can advance our strategic goals to elevate our voice, expertise, and profession.

Voice and Value
I am passionate about advancing landscape architecture by connecting with students, practitioners, policymakers, clients, developers and the public to recognize the value we bring to people’s everyday lives. Together, we can elevate the importance of our work and be the voice for how landscape architecture benefits communities and people. I am committed to research and messaging to promote the benefits and rewards of our profession to all audiences.

Expertise Through Community and Connections
Landscape architecture faces an era of complex challenges, which can best be solved by working together and with allied professions. ASLA has always been a place where we connect, share ideas, and discuss how to solve the biggest challenges of our time. I will use the ASLA platform to bolster outside connections, empower our profession to scale its impact, and inspire a new generation of landscape architects. Together, we can take on the most pressing concerns on behalf of our communities.

Advance our Profession Through Innovation and Scale
Continuous learning is essential to our growth, both as individuals and as a profession. ASLA has been a constant source of innovation and inspiration, challenging us to improve, adapt, and evolve within an ever-changing environment. I will work to promote knowledge and resources that convey innovations in our profession, allowing us to keep learning and scaling our work to shape better environments.