Leanne Kesler Wins Prestigious Award

August 8, 2024 - The Society of American Florists (SAF) presented the Tommy Bright award to Leanne Kesler, owner and education director of the Floral Design Institute.  This award is SAF’s most prestigious award signifying a lifetime of commitment to education excellence in the floral industry.

    Beginning with a tiny vocational school in 1988, training just 48 students a year Leanne Kesler AIFD, PFCI, AAF, FDI has built the Portland based Floral Design Institute into the largest floral design training and certification school in America with thousands of graduates and millions of followers worldwide.  Many florists, floral designers, wedding and event designers began their careers with training at Floral Design Institute.

    Leanne’s accomplishments include being the first floral design educator to create a hands-on distance learning program.  Launched in 1998 this program has evolved into an online program with students throughout the world.  Leanne was the first to create free online floral design training videos.  These videos are today used by flower shops, high schools, community colleges and universities as a supplement to their own floral design training programs, and are viewed by an audience of over five million annually.

Tommy Bright Award Biography

Leanne Kesler AAF, PFCI, AAF, FDI

It all began with a frog. Leanne had always been an excellent student, but in 1977 at the age of 16 she was prepared to drop out of high school.  The reason: an administrative requirement that all students had to complete a semester of basic biology to graduate and a rigid mandate that all students must dissect a frog. Leanne refused to dissect a frog.

Thankfully, due to the efforts of indulgent parents and an enlightened horticulture instructor, Mr. David Lambert who was seeking to build his school’s vocational training programs and add floral design to the curriculum it was decided that Leanne would be allowed to take horticulture and floral design to fulfill the administration’s biology requirement.

Leanne fell in love with flowers and floral design and within that same year began working part-time as a floral designer.  Mr. Lambert went on to create the floral design curriculum template used today throughout Washington State High Schools and remained a mentor to Leanne for many years.

Leanne has never forgotten the importance of her high school floral design experience.  She offers all local high school vocational teachers and their students an annual  “day in the classroom with Leanne”.  Several hundred students take advantage of this offer each year.  She is also active with student floral design competitions and FFA chapter activities, both local and national.

Importantly, Leanne learned a significant lesson that would serve her throughout her teaching career.  “Often it is not the student who fails, it is an educational system that fails the student.”

After working as a floral designer in several flower shops Leanne was hired as the lead floral designer and manager of a flower shop co-owned by Mr. Robert Farrell and Carla Herring. Yes, the same Bob Farrell of “Farrell’s Ice Cream Parlors”.  It was from Mr. Farrell that Leanne learned creative marketing, customer service and zaniness in merchandising.  From Carla, Leanne learned bookkeeping, financial management and responsibility.  Mr. Farrell became a lifelong mentor and friend to Leanne until his death in 2015.  In 2011 as a favor to Leanne Mr. Farrell agreed to be the keynote speaker at the San Francisco AIFD National Symposium. 

It was Mr. Farrell who was instrumental in impressing upon Leanne the importance of community service.  Appalled by the lack of compassion and care for the victims of AIDS in the 1980’s, many of whom were floral designers and friends, Leanne became active in a Portland AIDS hospice and living-with-HIV care facility, “Our House”.  She helped establish and actively conducted programs raising millions of dollars for Our House over the last three decades. 

Leanne loves parades.  In addition to contributing rose arrangements, centerpieces, corsages, Princess, and Queen bouquets and serving as a parade judge, she has not missed a single Portland Rose Parade since 1982.  Always first in the bleachers, front row, and center.  In 2017 Leanne covered the Pasadena Rose Parade as a photojournalist for Florist Review magazine.

Leanne has passionately pursued the promotion of flowers and floral design within her local community. As a part of the annual Chrysanthemum Festival, Leanne helped create, host, and sponsor “Nights of the Golden Flower” at the Portland Lan Su Chinese Garden.  This is a floral design showcase for local floral designers giving them the opportunity to display their artistic talents.  

Early in her career, Leanne became an active member of the Northwest Florists Association (NFA) and the local Teleflora Unit.  Leanne served as an education specialist with NFA and served as the NFA President in 1998-1999.  She was the president of the local Teleflora Unit in 1986.

In 1982 while still working as a flower shop manager Leanne began teaching part-time at Floral Design Institute (FDI).  In 1988 Leanne purchased FDI and shortly thereafter purchased another floral school, The Western School of Floral Design. Leanne’s career as a floral design teacher and floral design school owner had begun.  Floral Design Institute is licensed as a private vocational school by the Oregon Higher Education Coordinating Commission.  All FDI instructors are licensed teachers through this same commission. Leanne moved the school to a new location and as the positive reputation of the training at Floral Design Institute grew, so did her business volume.

Stung by a comment from a local florist critical of Leanne for never owing a flower shop, yet teaching floral design, Leanne decided to open a flower shop.  “After-all, I should have a laboratory to verify what I am teaching.”  In 1993 Leanne opened Flowers in the Park and Crazy Aunt Lanny’s, a combination Flower Shop and Espresso Shop.  She was “ahead of her time,” both businesses were an instant hit.  In 1996 through 2008 Crazy Aunt Lanny’s was the highest grossing Torrefazione Italia espresso business in the Portland market.

In 1996 Leanne licensed her school with the Washington Department of Education and opened a second floral design school location in Seattle, Washington. Between 1996 and 2008 Leanne juggled her time between Seattle and Portland, managing both schools, the expresso business, and the flower shop. During this 12-year period Leanne could be found on the Amtrak train every Wednesday, heading from one city to the other.  In 1998 Leanne made the extraordinary decision to begin a distance learning floral design program.  She went to a film school in Southern California and invested nearly all her business savings in film, lighting, sound and editing equipment and in 1999 with the training program approved by the Oregon Higher Education Coordinating Commission she launched her distance learning floral design vocational program, MyFlowerSchool.com. The training was recorded on VHS tapes, with design supplies and instructions shipped to the students.  Students communicated their completed projects with photos and quizzes mailed to the school instructors for evaluation and critique.  Leanne was delighted and a bit surprised by the success of the students in the distance learning program.  In comparative evaluations of Distance Learning students and Classroom students, the Distance Learning students scored equally with the Classroom students. 

With this innovation Leanne was again “ahead of her time.” The was the very first licensed distance learning floral design course, with training on VHS video tapes, full teacher support, student evaluation, critique and certification available in the world.

 Buoyed by the success of this program, the Distance Learning program was re-filmed, and recorded on DVD’s.  In 2014 the program was again re-filmed and a Software Development firm was hired to create a Proprietary Learning Management Software. The Distance Learning label was changed to Online Learning.  Students now view their lessons online 24 hours a day and seven days a week, anywhere in the world on all computer, smart phone, and tablet platforms.  They can complete online quizzes and projects and submit images of their completed design assignments via an online dashboard.  Instructors can actively monitor the student’s progress through the dashboard, evaluating and critiquing their assignments and communicating encouragement and suggestions for further study and career improvement. Currently Floral Design Institute offers six different certification programs online and has graduated several thousand students from around the world.

In 2008 the management of two flower school classrooms in two different cities, plus a rapidly growing and very demanding online learning program, and a very busy espresso business and flower shop had taken its toll.  Leanne was exhausted, something had to give. She decided to sell her flower shop and espresso business to a longtime friend and coffee shop owner who had been pursuing her for several years wanting to buy her businesses.  A careful study of student demographics revealed that seventy percent of the FDI classroom students came from outside the Seattle / Portland market.  It simply made no sense to maintain two classrooms in the same market.  Leanne closed the Seattle classroom, moved the school to a new location and freshly remodeled classroom in Portland and leased a new commercial space where she designed new offices, a creative center, and a film and photography studio.

After reading a book authored by Seth Godin who encouraged professional musicians to give away their music for free online, grow their brand and fan base, then earn an income from live concerts. Leanne decided that this highly unconventional marketing technique could be applied to her business. In embracing this technique, Leanne was once again “ahead of her time.” She created a new series of Floral Design Videos hosted by YouTube and Vimeo and available to the public for free.  To date there are over 2,000 individual FDI training videos hosted on these free platforms.  In 2022 Floral Design Institute received a Silver You Tube Creators Society Award for reaching the goal of 100,000 verified You Tube subscribers. 

These free videos have been viewed by an audience of over 15,400,000.  This audience includes Flower Shops, High Schools, Vocational Schools, Community Colleges, and Universities as supplemental classroom instruction in their Floral Design Training Programs.

As social media platforms began to open Leanne decided to actively post floral design training videos, tips and advice on multiple social media platforms.  Currently Floral Design Institute supports the following platforms with postings and support:

You Tube, 111,754 subscribers,

Facebook, 75,000 followers,

Instagram, 31,900 followers,

Pinterest, 5,100, followers

MailChimp email, 25,000 active subscribers

It is estimated by EMERGE, a UX design agency and consultancy firm that Floral Design Institute has an annual audience reach of over five million individuals.

In 2005 Leanne became an Accredited Member of the American Institute of Floral Designers (AIFD).  Floral Design Institute is an AIFD Education Partner.  Leanne served on the AIFD membership committee for eight years and served as chairperson of that committee.  Leanne is an AIFD Certified Floral Evaluator and Judge and served as chairperson of that committee.  In 2011 Leanne was the chairperson of the AIFD National symposium in San Francisco.  In 2012 Leanne became a member of the Professional Floral Communicators International (PFCI) and in 2023 was inducted into the American Academy of Floriculture (AAF)

More than just a Floral Design Teacher, Leanne has set a “Gold Standard” as an educator.  Since it’s founding in 1969, Floral Design Institute has always required of its students a high school diploma for admission.  In 1998 the Oregon Higher Education Coordinating Commission added a requirement that if a school required graduation from high school, then a copy of the high school diploma must be filed with the students’ records.  Given that “finding their high school diploma” was nearly impossible for all students over the age of thirty,  the FDI Board of Advisors dropped the requirement.  

This turned out to be a blessing in disguise.  Many students enrolling in FDI without a high school diploma had been failed by both their parents and their public-school teachers.  In developing the tactile skills of floral design, these students for the very first-time discovered success in learning and began a new path of discovery in education.  Reading and math skills were extremely weak in many of these students. Leanne and her instructors spent many hours outside of the classroom teaching elementary level math, spelling, and reading using books and flash cards donated by Leanne’s mom who was an elementary school teacher.  Leanne worked hard to help these students understand that they could be a great designer, but would never get a job if they could not price an arrangement or fill out a sympathy card.  Students were encouraged to take outside classes and earn a General Educational Development Diploma (GED).  Many of the students did earn a GED, and several went on to earn college degrees.

Leann’s accomplishments are many and are extraordinary.  However, if asked, she will tell you that her greatest accomplishment is very simply the “success of her students”.