Lauritzen Gardens Executive Director Spencer Crews to Retire

Longtime Lauritzen Gardens (www.lauritzengardens.org) Executive Director Spencer Crews has announced that he is retiring from full-time leadership of Omaha’s public garden. Crews will transition to the position of Executive Director Emeritus-Advisor. He will work to incorporate the garden’s new Executive Director, and will focus on new garden design, horticulture and archiving the garden’s development history. The Lauritzen Gardens Board of Directors has launched a national search for an Executive Director, and will work with a search firm to name a top-level leader by summer 2018.

Under Crews’ leadership, Lauritzen Gardens developed as a public-private partnership from a bluff with wooded terrain just west of the Missouri River to a thriving 100-acre botanical center near downtown Omaha. Highlights of his tenure include, but are certainly not limited to: the opening of the 32,000-square-foot visitor and education center in 2001, the admittance of Lauritzen Gardens as the 38th participating institution in the Center for Plant Conservation in 2012, and the addition of the 17,500-square-foot Marjorie K. Daugherty Conservatory in 2014. During Crews’ tenure, staff members increased from a single full-time employee to 70+ employees.

2017 was an exceptional year for the garden, setting records for yearly attendance, household memberships and educational participants. “Lauritzen Gardens is one of Omaha’s greatest treasures due to the vision and work of Spencer Crews,” said Lee Handke, board president. “Spencer was the first Executive Director of the gardens, guiding its growth and development into a vibrant place for the community to enjoy, with a reputation that continues to grow beyond Omaha.”

For more information about Lauritzen Gardens, please visit www.lauritzengardens.org or call (402) 346-4002.