Erin Eck is the director of Continuing Education at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and has been teaching at the Garden since 2018.

Erin has a background in public horticulture and was a gardener at the High Line for nearly six years. She began her career in urban gardening as a research assistant studying soil health in NYC’s community gardens. Erin is a co-lead of the Forest for All NYC coalition’s workforce development action team. In this capacity, she has planned and co-facilitated workshops on best hiring practices.

Erin holds a Master of Environmental Science degree from the Yale School of the Environment.

Michael Franco is the Founder and Principal of BluePlant LLC a landscape design build firm based out of Red Hook Brooklyn.

Michael’s professional training is in Landscape Architecture and Community Design Research from SUNY-ESF at Syracuse University. He began his career with the New York Restoration project, facilitating the re-design of public community garden spaces. From there he focused his efforts on landscape design, developing urban gardens for private and commercial clients via the design build model. A brief professional & family adventure took him to Istanbul, Turkey to work on a Marina landscape project and the development of a Tree Nursery. Invigorated by the experience abroad Michael returned to NY in 2018 to start BluePlan.