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Our Staff

 

Phil Adikes
President
888-261-5504 (Phils Desk)


Phil is from Long Island, New York, and he enjoys traveling, gardening, golf, baseball, and being a dad to 5 wild kids. Phil and his family have settled in quiet Albany, New York where he is happy to make a living e-marketing for Garden Centers and Nurseries across the United States.

When Phil was a young boy, his dad was in the fertilizer business and used to drive Phil around to visits with his nursery clients on Saturdays. Now it's 40 years later and the only major change is Phil does the driving. As the car pulls out of the parking lot they race to say "You know what I would do with that place?" It's a great thing when your job and your hobby merge.

  • Favorite Movie: The Good Shepherd
  • Favorite Place: The first tee on Saratoga National Golf Course
  • Least Favorite Place: The Mall
  • Guilty Pleasure: The New York Mets
 
 

Kathy Kinsley
Senior Developer


Kathy is from Cape Coral, Florida. While living in Florida, Kathy decided it wasn't close enough to the equator and moved to Thailand for a couple of years. She enjoys gardening, riding her bicycle, and designing websites.

If you call Kathy during the day, you will likely hear her music playing in the background. It might be classical, folk, rock or jazz - she also likes country, but only to dance to. Kathy has a personal library of over 3000 books and her favorite reading topics include science fiction, fantasy and popular science.
One of Kathy's favorite topics is Thailand. Living there for 2 years made quite an impression on her. She still misses the green curry, almost as much as the people. She went over to run an Internet Café, and found the people and culture charmed her enough to keep her there a while.

In addition to traveling, Kathy loves to garden, read, play online computer games, and dance to country music.

  • Favorite Movie: Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
  • Favorite Computer Game: Runescape.
  • How we found Kathy: We posted a section of bad code on a technical website, and asked job applicants to tell us why it didn't work. Out of over 100 respondents, Kathy was the first, the most correct, and the most thorough. We had no idea at the time that she knew so much about gardening.
 
 Ann Vucetich
Editor


Ann is a Southern California native and a resident of Whittier, where she raised two sons. She majored in English and minored in foreign language before beginning a thirty-year career as an English teacher. And because she still misses high school students (a little, sometimes) she is a volunteer tutor at the local literacy council. Her current student (three years now) is a fifty-something Korean man who is currently studying Asian Medicine in order to fulfill his dream of becoming an acupuncturist.

When people say to her, "You proof newsletters? What a boring job!," she answers "Are you kidding? I get to see beautiful newsletters from some of the best nurseries in the country. And I work with a fabulous team."
  • Favorite authors: Philip Roth, Jane Austen, Tony Hillerman, Seamus Heaney
  • Favorite Movies: All That Jazz, Lawrence of Arabia
  • Favorite Food: Mexican (Southern California, you know)
  • In the Next Life (just in case): She will major in Linguistics
  • Guilty Pleasure: Ugly Betty
 
 Christina Ports-Tollison
Marketer


Born and raised in Anaheim, CA, Christina now lives in Yorba Linda, CA, with a loving husband, Steve, and two great little girls, Lauren and Sarah.

Before she had the opportunity to work for Garden Center News as a Marketer, she worked as an executive assistant. She loves working on the computer and with people.
  • Things she loves to do: Geocaching, Playing the piano, listening to music, and building websites
  • Typical family day out: Parks, geocaching or Long Beach aquarium (annual pass holders)
  • Favorite shows: Heros, Ghost Hunters, Destination Truth, 90210, and Young & the Restless
  • Guilty Pleasure: Anything with chocolate and peanut butter...yum!
 
 

Carli Castellani

Carli Castellani is an artist, writer and designer currently living in Upstate, NY. She is a partner in the arts collaborative, Status Hat Productions, which produces new music, digital comic books, and a monthly arts webzine. Her freelance work, in addition to creating newsletters and websites for Garden Center News, includes consulting on curriculum to encourage adolescent girls to consider programming careers. She is originally from Chicago, and lived in Seattle for many years. She likes spending as much time in nature as possible, cooking, reading and traveling.


  • Favorite Movies: The Unbelievable Truth, Groundhog Day, Beauty and the Beast;
  • Favorite TV Shows: Dr. Who, Life on Mars;
  • Favorite Books: History (on whatever interests me at the moment)
  • Favorite Place: Nature with woods and water.
 
 Jacqui Kraus
Office Manager / Project Manager


Jacqui was born and raised in Schenectady, NY. She has degrees in Operatic Vocal Performance from Boston Conservatory of Music. As an accomplished musician/vocalist Jacqui performed for 10 years throughout the US, Mexico, Carribbean, South America, West Indies and Virgin Islands. After almost 10 years of touring, Jacqui returned to NY's Capital District, where she entered into the corporate world working as a Facilities Adminstrator.

Jacqui is married to "the man of her dreams" Bob, and together they have 3 beautiful children. Jacqui enjoys being a Girl Scout leader for two troops, teaching... classical voice lessons, performing with her band, and working as a professional voice-over talent.
  • Favorite Movie: Gone With the Wind
  • Favorite Place: Orangestadt, Aruba
  • Least Favorite Place: The Check Out Line At Walmart
  • Guilty Pleasure: Manicure and Pedicure.
 
 James Cassidy
Account Manager


James is from Albany, New York, where generations of his family have lived for centuries. He has certification in MicroComputer Technology from Hudson Valley Community College.

He has studied instrumental music and Music Technology at Berklee College of Music, The College of Saint Rose and Schenectady County Community College. His personal interests are music, audio engineering, synthesizers, drums, 3D Modeling, video games, animation, film, genealogy, computers, web design.
  • Favorite Movie: Harold and Maude
  • Favorite Drummers: Vinnie Colaiuta, Bill Bruford, Peter Erskine, Omar Hakim, Manu Katche
  • Favorite Music: Peter Gabriel, King Crimson, Steve Reich, Frank Zappa, early Genesis, Talking Heads, P-Funk, James Brown
  • Favorite Filmmakers: David Lynch, John Cassavetes
 
 Mahesh Sangam
Application Developer


Mahesh lives in Mumbai India; at 31 years old, he is the youngster of our group. Mahesh has never been to the United States, but we are planning an itinerary for him. He will have to endure 8 home cooked meals, and 100 hugs. He has become a part of our families.

When Mahesh takes a break, he enjoys listening to music, playing cricket and volleyball. Mahesh's favorite development tool is Flash and he likes to take on all of the really hard development work. The rest of us are glad to give it to him.

Mahesh has been a bridge builder for our team; we have all enjoyed learning about Indian Culture, and even felt a part of Mahesh's wedding plans. Mahesh married his lovely wife Srilata in June 3rd 2006. On the other side of the cultural exchange Phil is working hard to build Mahesh's fondness for the Mets, and contempt for the Yankees.
  • Favorite Movies: Titanic, Catch Me if You Can!, Ghajini (Hindi)
  • Favorite Place: Sitting at the Beach
  • Favorite Music: JoJo
  • Goal: To visit his friends in the United States
 

Mylee Basa
Graphic Designer

As a graphic designer, Mylee firmly believes that in whatever project she takes on, the finished product should communicate the message clearly and with emotion. Her experience in designing for the music industry taught her to approach design organically. "In a digital world, the power of texture is often lost and that is something I strive to bring back in everything I design for the web and for print. I think the organic approach is, naturally, the ideal way to design for those passionate about gardening."

Mylee resides in Rochester, NY and is pursuing her Communications degree while working as a Graphic Design Specialist for Garden Center News. In her spare time, she can be found with her nose buried in home decorating magazines, graphic design books, or classic novels. That is, of course, when her Shetland Sheepdog, Prince, isn't demanding her attention.
  • Favorite Movie: Amelie
  • Favorite Musicians: Chris Botti, Jamie Cullum
  • Favorite Place to Be: A great live jazz concert!
  • Guilty Pleasure: Baz Luhrmann films, especially "Moulin Rouge" and "Strictly Ballroom." Reading books like "Bridget Jones Diary" and "The Devil Wears Prada."
 

Srilata Sangam
Assistant Developer


Srilata lives in Mumbai India, with her husband of one year, Garden Center News Developer Mahesh Sangam! Srilata enjoys cooking, designing, painting, listening to music, and reading. Her passions are: meeting new friends, traveling to exciting places, singing her favorite songs, and her all time favorite...shopping for new clothes and things for the house. Srilata is a wonderful new addition to our Garden Centers News family, and she looks forward to enhancing her knowledge of new designing software tools to better serve our clients.
  • Favorite Movies: Titanic
  • Favorite Place: Mahabhaleshwar (Hills Station) & Tirupati (Holy, Pilgrimage Place)
  • Greatest Challenge: Learning new design
  • Favorite Singers : Lata Mangeshkar and Balasubramaniam
  • Favorite Pass Time : Listening to Music and Watching TV
 
 

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I have always wanted to produce an e-newsletter. Because of the time involved in doing one on a "regular basis, I put off" the project. Thanks to Garden center News.  Green Thumb Nursery

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