Dr. Rick Schoellhorn, Director of New Products
Proven Winners


Dr. Rick Schoellhorn joined the Proven Winners team in 2005 as Director of New Products. Rick coordinates the US trials of Proven Winners and works with PW global on global trialing issues. He is responsible for finding new plants and testing them via Proven Winners exhaustive trialing program and working with plant breeders around the world to help them make headway in developing new crops. From March through October Rick is in the air and on the road around the globe looking for the truly best breeding fro Proven Winners.

Over the past twenty years he has worked extensively in the horticulture industry in a variety of occupations.  His experience includes: 7 years as a college professor at the University of Florida, 5 years in retail nursery sales, 3 years of golf course maintenance in California, 3 year retail nursery production and sales in Alaska, 12 years as sole proprietor of a landscape and interiorscape installation and design company in Colorado.  He has toured Indonesia, Holland, Germany, Spain, Madeira Island Portugal, Costa Rica, Japan, and Mexico collecting plants and consulting with growers. 

Dr. Schoellhorn’s research as the Statewide Floriculture Specialist at the University of Florida included: Effects on plant growth regulators in the production of tropical ornamentals, breeding and selecting new ornamental crops, tropical bulb crops, and organizing industry/professional training events within the state of Florida.

Rick is a member of the American Society of Horticultural Science, the Perennial Plant Association, the Florida State Horticulture Society, The American Association of Botanic Gardens and Arboreta, and the Florida Nursery Grower and Landscape Association.

Dr. Rick Schoellhorn received his M.S. (1992) and Ph.D. (1996) from the University of Florida, Gainesville, and his B.S. from Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado in 1989. 

Rick is the co-author of “Your Florida Guide to Perennials” (ISBN: 0-8130-2927-9)with Dr. Sydney Park-Brown and has a CD of original music floating around out there somewhere called “Under a Midnight Sky” and if you’re lucky you’ll never hear it…