Kari Mazzaferro
Meet Kanawha County’s New WVU Extension Agent
Although I did not officially start my
position as the Ag and Natural Resource Extension Agent for Kanawha County until April 17th,
I was anxious to get started and took the opportunity to travel to Clarksburg for the Master
Gardener State Board Meeting on April 8th and I attended the KC
Board Meeting on April 10th.
From those meetings I can see this group is dynamic, enthusiastic, very
dedicated and an extremely knowledgeable. I am very much looking forward to
getting to know and work with all of you.
Over time as your extension agent, I hope to meet and surpass your
expectations of me, but I do ask for your patience as I come to better
understand how I will best serve you and the community.
I grew up in southwestern Pennsylvania in the Mon Valley (Monongahela)
area, just south of Pittsburgh. My grandfather,
a laid-off steel worker at the time, watched me while my mother worked. His
idea of babysitting was having me work in the garden - weeding, planting, and
looking for fishing worms! A plant
addict was born there. I received my
Bachelors of Science in Horticulture at Penn State University in the fall of
1999. While at Penn State, I worked with
Dr. Richard Craig and Dr. Majid Foolad, well-known plant breeders of geraniums
and tomatoes, respectively. At Penn State, I was an active
member of AgAdvocates and the Horticulture Club. I continued on at Michigan State University with Royal Heins
in the Floriculture Department to obtain my Masters of Science, graduating in
the fall of 2002. My thesis title was:
“Effects of Temperature on Flower Development Rate and Morphology of
Phalaenopsis”. Phalaenopsis are the most
popular genera of potted flowering orchids. Orchids as a group are only second
to poinsettias in terms of economic value.
I had the great opportunity of presenting my research at the
International Society of Horticultural Science (ISHS) conference in Toronto, Canada, the American
Society of Horticultural Science (ASHS) conference in Sacramento, California, and at Wageningen University in the Netherlands.
Upon graduation, I took an orchid growing
position at Kerry’s Bromeliad Nursery, Inc. working for six months in Miami, Florida, for training and
eventually moving to their northern location outside Orlando, Florida. Kerry’s is the
largest orchid growers in Florida with 63 acres of greenhouse growing space,
and one of the largest growers of the popular Dendrobium orchids in the United
States. Kerry’s Bromeliad has two
locations, one in Homestead and the other in Apopka, Florida, and sells to
Home Depot, Costco and other mass market retailers. In fact, if you walked into almost any Home
Depot locally you might just spot an orchid with the distinctive pink “KB” aka
“Klassic Beauties” tagged there which was possibly grown by me a few years
ago. During my time at Kerry’s, I
traveled to the Netherlands to attend
International Horti Fair and tour Dutch orchid producers.
After 2 years and a long hurricane season,
I moved from central Florida’s hurricane alley
to Hurricane, West Virginia, in early October
when I took the position as greenhouse manager for West Virginia State University. As greenhouse
manager, I was responsible for overseeing and managing the use of the
greenhouses and fields by researchers. I
worked with project leaders to help determine equipment and supplies required
for experiments and supervise student employees.
I currently reside in St. Albans with my husband Robert, two-year-old son Alekzander, and our black lab
Bailey (named after Liberty Hyde Bailey “The Dean of American
Horticulture”). Robert is currently an
adjunct art instructor at Ohio University Southern and Proctorville campuses