Grover Family Endowed Chair in Sustainable Urban Landscapes

The Grover Family Endowed Chair in Sustainable Urban Landscapes was established in 2022 by a generous pledge from Robert Grover, ’83, and Theresa Kirsch, ’85, to support and promote research, teaching and outreach in the Department of Horticulture within the College of Agricultural Sciences.

“This position will help landscape professionals not only create beautiful green spaces, but bring about solutions to a lot of climate-related problems through landscaping,” they say.

Both Oregon State University alumni, Grover and Kirsch met in a ski class during the winter of 1983. Grover received his bachelor’s degree in horticulture, while Kirsch earned her bachelor’s degree from the College of Science before completing her master’s degree in mathematics education at Portland State University. Their three children are all OSU alumni.

Kirsch is a retired applied mathematics and statistics high school teacher in the Hillsboro school district. Bob worked for a landscape contractor for 18 years and then founded Pacific Landscape Management in 2001, which has received multiple national environmental stewardship awards and has been named one of Oregon Business magazine’s Best Green Companies.