August 2022 - 12

perspectives
BY KARIN WALTERS
Growing in Transition
Going into March 2020, our executive leadership team at
Karin Walters is
vice president of
product strategy for
Walters Gardens, a
perennial wholesale
nursery located in
Zeeland, Michigan.
She's a member of
the 40 Under 40
class of 2021 and
can be reached at
karin.walters.0109@
waltersgardens.com.
Walters Gardens already had a lot going on. We were anticipating
a year of what we then considered phenomenal growth thanks to
Proven Winners. We had made some incredibly exciting strides
toward transitioning the roles/tasks that my dad, John Walters
(current CEO), had held for nearly 30 years to the next
generation of Ryan Hop (COO and my cousin), Christa
(Walters) Steenwyk (vice president of marketing and
industry relations and my sister) and myself (vice
president of product strategy).
No doubt, 2020 was going to be an exciting and
challenging year. Sure, there were some murmurings
and developments of COVID-19, but everyone was
hoping it would be like the 2003 SARS outbreak,
where it stayed localized to a few countries in Asia
and the worry about a global pandemic ended up
being overblown.
It's easy to ruefully laugh at our perceived naïveté
because the COVID-19 pandemic took our definition
of " challenging " and amplified it. We went from
strategically planning our long-term future once a
week to meeting daily and dealing almost exclusively with COVIDrelated
problems.
Learning to
navigate a scary and
stressful time as a
team prepared us for
future decisions.
Are we going to lose sales? Do we stay open? Do we require
masks (this was before the state/national requirements)? A
seemingly never-ending barrage of unique problems not related
to the business prevented us from planning for the future. For
about three months, it was just about staying in business, staying
healthy and keeping our heads above water.
What I can be grateful for is that Walters Gardens was one
of the fortunate ones, in that the stay-at-home orders and
travel restrictions were a boon for us in the perennial market.
The 2020-2021 season was a record-shattering one for us -
12 AUGUST 2022 GPNMAG.COM
beating our previous annual sales increase by more than double.
Additionally, on a personal note, I did not experience the level
of isolation others in the world have faced since I shared my
" bubble " with my dad, Ryan and Christa.
Being able to make those COVID-19 decisions as a team of four
unified us. I won't say that we don't have our disagreements on
issues, but learning to navigate a scary and stressful time as a
team prepared us for future decisions. I love being part of a team
because you have a combination of a sounding board, relying on
others' strengths where it may not be your specialty - and even
mini-therapy sessions for stressful days. I can't imagine it any
other way.
We are grateful to be back in forward-thinking, strategicplanning
mode with many exciting ideas for revamping and
improving our 75-year-old family business. This will help us
either ride the tailwinds of a great market or weather the
headwinds of the next crisis. My dad, trusting the three of us
at the helm, is looking forward to stepping back but still being
involved in the business.
Thanks to GPN for the incredible honor of being a 40 Under
40 recipient for 2021. Ryan was recognized in 2020 and
Christa in 2019, so we now have a rockstar team of GPNapproved
leadership.
Congratulations to the Class of 2022!
http://www.GPNMAG.COM
August 2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of August 2022
