Editor Patrick Alan Coleman on the September 2025 issue of Greenhouse Management

My grandmother immigrated to the United States from Sweden when she was a little girl. She arrived with her family and established herself on the outskirts of Denver, Colorado, before meeting my grandfather and falling in love.

While her journey from Sweden was not easy, she arrived safe. That’s why I am here today.

But there are immigrant journeys that are far more complicated. Sometimes they begin because of unrest or disaster. Sometimes the path isn’t linear, and it winds its way across the globe. Sometimes the destination is not the one that was expected.

Our cover story this month is about Belal El-Hassan, head grower at Hendriks Greenhouses in Beamsville, Ontario. His journey as an immigrant started in a refugee camp in Lebanon and ended in Canada, but in between he found himself in Kuwait, Chicago and Holland.

El-Hassan’s story is marked by a hunger for education. It’s a story interrupted by war. But it has a happy ending. He’s had a rich life, including a marriage that led to a family of five and a greenhouse career that led to a leadership position for which he won a 2025 Horticultural Industries Leadership Award (HILA).

As I read his remarkable story, as written by Editorial Director Kelli Rodda, it struck me how many stories there are like this.

Perhaps you have your own.

Some are told within our families, about our grandparents or great grandparents.

And some are told within the pages of a humble magazine.