Holly (Harmar) Shimizu M.S. '84 tends the U.S. Botanic Garden as its executive director.

Tending a Not-so-secret Garden

Holly (Harmar) Shimizu’s office is almost as green as the 10-acre garden that surrounds her historic digs in Washington, D.C.

Broad-leafed plants rest atop her desk, on a mini refrigerator and in nearly every corner. Photos and paintings—including an American Holly watercolor—take on a botanical theme, while bookcases struggle to contain tomes on roses, herbs and exotic or rare plants.

Consider it required interior decorating for Shimizu M.S. ’84, executive director of the 186-year-old United States Botanic Garden.

Nestled at the foot of the National Mall, the Botanic Garden’s dramatic glass conservatory and Bartholdi Park are home to 18 individual gardens designed to teach and inspire. Shimizu oversees a staff of 60 and coordinates daily activities, annual exhibits and special events held in conjunction with the Architect of the Capitol or the Smithsonian Institution.

She’s passionate about plants—particularly fragrant herbs like lemon grass and lemon verbena—and wants to make sure others see the beauty and function in the plant life that surrounds them.

“The thing you want to do is to be scientifically correct,” she says. “You also want to get visitors engaged.”

Those visitors—some one million annually—include D.C. residents, tourists and high-ranking government officials. Filled with fragrant blossoms and trickling fountains, the gardens offer serenity, but Shimizu ensures they also include an element of surprise.

With a collection of more than 20,000 plants—about 10,000 orchids alone—designs and information are constantly changing.

After working at public gardens in Pennsylvania and throughout Europe, Shimizu earned her master’s in horticulture while running the National Arboretum’s herb garden. She joined the Botanic Garden in the 1980s, but left for a stint at an up-and-coming garden in Richmond. She returned to D.C. as executive director in 2000, just as the U.S. Botanic Garden was undergoing a major renovation.

“It’s had a lot of highs and lows,” says Shimizu. “We’re in a really great place now. I’m so lucky because I do what I love here.” —KM

Path to Maryland Paved Early

Though his grandfather bears the distinction of being the first Chinese student to attend Maryland and his dad and all three uncles are alumni, Andrew Chen ’85 finds it surprising that the university knows who he is.

Chunjen Constant Chen

The younger Chen admits that he led a low-key college life. A self-described “lost puppy” at Maryland, Chen worked through most of two majors, history and electrical engineering, before finding his way to the Robert H. Smith School of Business and a marketing degree. Thanks to strong family ties, the path to Maryland was much clearer.

Grandfather Chunjen Constant Chen came from Shanghai to enroll at Maryland in 1915 through a U. S. government scholarship. Though he completed his final undergraduate year at Cornell University, Chen came back to Maryland to earn his master’s of science in agriculture in 1920. He returned to China to marry and begin teaching agriculture and military science at Tsing Hua University in what is now Beijing.

After fleeing communist China in the 1950s, Chunjen Chen settled in Maryland with his wife, Eva Chen; his oldest son, Ping, was a student at the university. The elder Chen joined the faculty as a Chinese language instructor. He retired as an assistant professor in 1967 and died in 1978, after sending to the university three more sons—Ming, Yi and Kong. Yi Chen ’55, Andrew’s father, says that he and his brothers didn’t have a choice about attending college elsewhere. Of Yi’s two sons, Andrew felt Maryland was his destination as well.

“I knew I was going to Maryland,” says Andrew, though to show his mom that he wasn’t limiting himself he also applied to the University of Virginia.

All in the family: Maryland grads Andrew Chen (background, left) and his father, Yi Chen, hope that Andrew’s daughter and son will be Terps one day.

Now president of Laurel-based Peace Technology, an information technology consulting company, Andrew Chen says more than academics, he and his dad are bound to Maryland by its sports. Specifically basketball. “My dad is the first crazed Terp in the family. He’s this mild-mannered guy … who during games is screaming at the television.”

Yi Chen marvels at Maryland’s physical growth as he travels to campus to attend games with Andrew, a Terrapin Club member, and Andrew’s 5-year-old son and 7-year-old daughter. The two already know the Maryland Victory Song. At least one of them, say Dad and Granddad, will be a fourth-generation Terp. —MAB

Chunjen (pictured above):

B.S., agriculture from Cornell (1919), M.S., agriculture from Maryland (1920), on faculty teaching Chinese at Maryland until 1967

Ping:

B.S. (1950), M.A. (1950), and Ph.D. (1959) government and politics, retired professor of political science at University of Eastern Illinois

Ming:

B.S., electrical engineering from Maryland (1956), retired professor of applied mechanics at SUNY Stony Brook

Yi:

B.S., physics (1955) and M.S., physics (1960), retired Montgomery County Public Schools employee

Kong:

B.S., accounting (1966) from Maryland, retired Department of Defense employee

Andrew:

B.S., marketing (1985), Peace Technology today

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