Matt Rader took the reigns this week as the 37th president of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, responsible for the annual Philadelphia Flower Show and neighborhood greening efforts throughout the region.
Rader takes over for Drew Becher, also an out gay man.
Rader comes to the Horticultural Society with experience leading the Fairmount Park Historic Preservation Trust and East Passyunk Avenue Business Improvement District. Most recently he worked as a management consultant at McKinsey and Company. The job required extensive travel.
Rader said he’s glad to be home in the apartment he shares with his partner Michael Smith, an organist and the chair of performing arts at the Shipley School at Bryn Mawr College. Rader started planning an indoor culinary garden to grow micro-greens and herbs.
As Rader looks forward to meeting and mobilizing the 100-plus team of employees at the Horticultural Society, he sat down with PGN for an interview in his new office near the Parkway.
PGN: What drew you to the Horticultural Society?
MR: For me, any opportunity to be a person who helps Philadelphia become a healthier, more prosperous, more diverse place is a great opportunity. I also have a parallel passion for parks and greening and gardens and environment. PHS brings together those two passions in a really wonderful way and gives a real opportunity for me to help work with all of our partners, members and community to make a better Philadelphia and beyond.
PGN: What are you looking forward to in your new role?
MR: One is helping people become gardeners, myself included. The second is the skill and capability that we bring to help neighborhoods reinvent themselves: turning vacant lands into gardens, greening their streets, adding window boxes. We have a long legacy of working with people on the ground. PHS also plays a big role in the civic landscape in Philadelphia, from envisioning and making happen, in partnership with others, some major public landscapes like Logan Circle or the Azalea Garden to the flower show, which is a very core part of Philadelphia tradition.
PGN: Are there any new programs or initiatives you’d like to explore?
MR: My goal is, in the first six months here, to really get to know the organization and the staff and the members and the partners, so that I have a really clear picture of what we’re doing today in detail, and then think about where to take us in the future.
PGN: How have you seen the LGBT community interact with the horticultural community?
MR: I don’t actually have a tremendous amount of context here. It’s something I would love to learn more about and explore. In Philadelphia, it’s been wonderful to watch as the LGBT community has rallied around celebrating its history, called out the identity of the Gayborhood and become a very visible part of the fabric of the city. The extent to which we can work with the community to make horticultural projects a part of that identity, I’d love to explore that.
PGN: What’s something the Horticultural Society does that you think people should be more familiar with?
MR: This organization is 189 years old. From a programmatic perspective, I think many people are familiar with the Flower Show. I think people are maybe less familiar with our programs for garden-tenders, which helps communities organize themselves and create community gardens. Another thing that’s very special is our Roots to Reentry program. It works with inmates to develop horticultural and gardening skills in an effort both to create a community for them while in prison and also help them reenter the community after release in landscape jobs or other professions that they will be skilled to take on.
PGN: What do you like to do in your free time?
MR: I love to read. I also really love to take long walks, so countryside or urban hikes. [Michael and I] did a walk in the fall from Rittenhouse Square to Chestnut Hill that was amazing. I think we ended up taking about four-and-a-half hours, which is a bit slower than it need be. But we sort of wandered and saw things. We hit all of these wonderful landscapes along the way. A lot of landscapes PHS has touched. [Michael] is a great partner in crime on the walking and the exploring. He’s able to see things that I don’t see because it’s sort of new to him.
For more information on the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, visit www.phsonline.com.