International Aroid Society + Tropical Plant Expo

Governance + institutions

Board leadership, governance drafting, policy, risk, and the practical work of organizing a major annual plant event.

Justin and Sam with Stripey, the International Aroid Society mascot, at the Tropical Plant Expo — Justin and Sam with Stripey at the Tropical Plant Expo.

A place to be useful

I earned a Master of Public Administration because I wanted a stronger understanding of how institutions make decisions, allocate resources, manage risk, and serve a public purpose. That interest intersected with the International Aroid Society as I learned more about its work and got to know the people involved.

I began my current board service in 2024 and have since served across chapters, grants, awards, nominations, and events. I now serve as Vice President and lead the Events Committee. Along the way, I have drafted governance policies, led candidate-recruitment and nominating work, and helped turn institutional needs into clearer processes that volunteers can actually use.

What the work supports

The International Aroid Society is an all-volunteer nonprofit sustained by memberships, donations, volunteer labor, and revenue from the Tropical Plant Expo, its largest annual event and primary earned-revenue source. That support helps fund research, education, publications, grants, and conservation focused on the plant family Araceae.

The goal is larger than producing an event or maintaining an organization. The work helps preserve knowledge, support researchers, and contribute to the conservation of the wild places where these plants evolved. I believe that matters, and that institutions doing this work deserve to be organized carefully enough to fulfill their purpose.

A quiet walkthrough before the Tropical Plant Expo floor opened to the public.

A wide view across vendors and plant displays on the Tropical Plant Expo floor — The event floor brings together vendors, volunteers, members, researchers, and the public.

A long vendor table filled with tropical plants at the Tropical Plant Expo — Hundreds of individual displays become one coordinated public event.

Justin and Sam standing in front of the 2024 Tropical Plant Expo plant wall — Justin and Sam at the 2024 Tropical Plant Expo.

The software behind the 2026 expo

For 2026 I also built the system the Events Committee used to plan and run the expo, the Society's largest annual fundraiser. Until then the event lived in one sprawling spreadsheet. I built the replacement by directing AI coding agents and reviewing their work, starting in late July, about two months before the doors opened.

About twenty committee members planned in it. The floor's 89 booths were tracked in it, and 73 vendor businesses signed in to manage their own details. On expo weekend, guests used it to register for the silent auction, place bids, and vote for People's Choice, while staff at the door checked tickets in with it. More than 500 people used it over the season.

There is one decision I would make again. The app makes no calls to an AI model while it runs, so nothing a guest or vendor sees is generated on the spot.