With a background in business and integrated marketing communications, Phil’s responsibilities range from general management duties to marketing, strategic planning and new business ventures at CSG. He developed his interest in gardens and design early in life and re-discovered it in the mid-90s when CSG was born. The intervening years spent in business nurtured in him a fascination with specialization and niche markets, which CSG now actively pursues.
As interest has grown in sustainable design and building practices, urban beautification and environmental awareness, CSG has ventured further into the realm of rooftop garden design and build services. The environmental benefits of such gardens, coupled with the innate appeal of a living, green garden space atop the city, have led Phil to believe there is a huge future for the company in rooftop garden work in addition to its longstanding landscape design work.
Phil's interests outside of work include distance running, vegetable gardening, cooking, poker, reading, billiards, and music of many varieties. He regularly attends the South By Southwest Music Festival in Austin, Texas each spring.
Julie's work experiences illustrate a career roadmap drawn with curves and detours through horticulture, floral and plant design, photography and Spanish translation. Joining Chicago Specialty Gardens in 2005 crystallized this diversity of experiences and skills toward a focus on urban garden spaces.
After completing a degree in Political Science and Latin American Literature at the University of Iowa and the Universidad de Guadalajara in Mexico, Julie entered the work force eager to exercise her language skills. Positions in translation led to international travel and a residency in Barcelona, Spain, where work as a photographer extended into rich, foreign landscapes. Returning to the Midwest Julie relied on previous floral design and greenhouse management roles in her native Iowa to secure a position as a floral and plant designer in Chicago. These influences continue to inform her perspective on composition, materials and design.
Julie's responsibilities involve careful consideration of the design elements that complete outdoor living rooms, including plant selection, furnishings, lighting, and ornamentation. Planning and styling these design elements supports the company's intent to maximize the potential of each client's outdoor space by linking our clients' interior tastes to their home's natural environment. Julie promotes a vision of exceptional garden design through research; inventive use of materials as applied to the site and design vision; and progressive design concepts.
Outside of her role at CSG, Julie enjoys parallel parking, spending time with her pup, and bicycling.
Sean first came to CSG in 2006 as a recent grad from the University of Illinois. At that time he was supporting the company’s design team in site layout, design development and project management, while generating his own design work. An opportunity arose in 2007 he couldn’t resist, and he spent the intervening 2 years in Sales and Project Management at a large suburban landscape design firm. Now Sean has returned to CSG in 2010 to bring the totality of his experiences to bear on the urban landscape.
After graduating from U of I, Sean spent a semester doing postgraduate work in residential design at the Oxford College of Garden Design in Oxford, England. He has traveled widely, taught (most recently at the Chicago Botanic Garden and Northwestern University’s School of Continuing Studies) and continues to explore new concepts in landscape design; sustainability; urban architecture and culture. When Sean is not designing something magnificent his focus is mainly on food and travel.
James Vinyard not only has a memorable name, he also has some memorable experiences. He has traveled widely throughout Canada and the US in his occupation as Project Manager on surveying and construction projects large and small. He spent a number of years as owner of his own commercial property surveying company, which took him to places as varied as the Hard Rock Casino in Las Vegas (he didn’t leave the casino for 2 weeks!) and a county morgue. He has held positions with both high-end residential developers and boutique metal fabrication shops. He has roots in Thailand, attended school in Arkansas, lives in Chicago and travels to Mesa, Arizona for Cubs spring training. Truly well-traveled.
As Construction Manager at CSG James’ responsibilities broadly cover the entire process of taking our designs from drawings through completion for our clients. So you can catch James at any particular time in a rooftop garden, at our shop, office or yard, with a supplier or breaking down a particularly complex challenge for our crews. Not as much fun as Vegas, perhaps. But not as expensive either.
James likes to train for triathlons in his spare time.
Vanessa started at CSG as an intern in the spring of 2008, needing some work study to graduate with a BFA in Interior Design from the International Academy of Design and Technology. She jumped right in, and when she graduated she came on with us full-time as Design Assistant.
The responsibilities of the Design Assistant cover a lot of ground. Vanessa not only helps out in many small ways to keep the office running but also supports the design staff by focusing on creating the initial CAD outlines from which our designs grow; working on space planning challenges; creating manual drafts, elevations and perspectives; and exercising her skills with numerous Architectural Desktop and AutoCAD programs. She is sometimes the first voice that our clients hear when they call the company, for Vanessa holds down the phone lines when everyone else is out in the field.
As an interior designer, Vanessa is comfortable with the sort of planning and design work which goes into our landscape creations. Traffic flow, space planning, balance, scale, proportion and similar considerations are all essential in both an interior and an exterior room. Vanessa will be learning more about plants and field work in the coming year, and expanding her knowledge of all of the elements which go into our finished gardens.
Vanessa enjoys spending time with her family, creating new food dishes, and bowling. Lots of bowling.
