Meet the Staff

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Harold Watters

There would be no Watters Garden Center without our founding father, Harold Watters. In 1962, Harold expanded his landscaping company to include a plant nursery, and the business was born where the old bowling alley is now on Plaza Drive in Prescott. The garden center grew with Harold’s family, at one time including a pet store and flower shop. His wife and four daughters all pitched in to help. Harold’s love of plants and of beautifying his community was integral in all aspects of his life, including family vacations spent touring gardens and nurseries. By 1983, the garden center—just like the plants– needed room to grow, so Harold moved it to its current location on Iron Springs Road. He decided he might want to retire at some point, and passed the torch in 2002 to his youngest daughter, Lisa Watters Lain, and her husband Ken Lain, now the second family generation to focus on making Prescott green and natural. More than 50 years after its beginning, folks still come to Watters Garden Center and tell us how Harold gave their relative/friend his/her first job in the Prescott community, or how he planted a little sapling in their yard that’s grown into an enormous tree decades later.

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Amy Langley

Amy Langley traded palm trees for pine trees when she left her job at the National Tropical Botanical Garden in Hawaii and moved to Prescott. Her love of plants immediately drew her to a management position at Watters, and she’s become the fiery force behind merchandising, motivation, and marketing. As our buyer for all things trees and shrubs, it’s her vision behind designs, displays, and new looks. In charge of staff development, she’s the cheerleader who believes in her team and pulls them together by kindness, respect, and mind control. The wordsmith that writes a lot of what you see and hear from us, she might even be writing these team profiles right now and trying to rein in her sarcasm. Devoted dog mom, lover of all things outdoors, and sci-fi reader, you can find her driving a forklift at the garden center, laughing over a microbrew with friends, or proudly working on her first home inside and out.

Amy Langley, ACNP, Receives Highest Degree Awarded Garden Center, Professionals

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Kevin Michels

We consider Kevin Michels our true Renaissance Man! Born into a military family, Kevin has lived in the Midwest and the middle of Europe but traces his love of gardening back to his grandfather, a professional baseball player, and farmer in Ohio. He has extensive experience in telling corny jokes and working in the media industry and has run businesses from restaurants to retail and flooring to farming. After moving to the desert from the Texas hills, Kevin wanted to master gardening in Arizona, and received his Master Gardener certification from Arizona State University. At Watters, his decades of experience, calming Texas drawl, and Dad Jokes come in handy teaching garden classes and giving our guests unique and intriguing ideas for an outstanding landscape. No matter his location or new venture to conquer, he’s always had a fruit and vegetable garden and loves feeding his family yard-to-table.  Kevin’s latest endeavors include crafting custom furniture, surrendering the tv remote to his wife, and playing with his granddaughters. Just don’t call him Grandpa, call him Tex.

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Patti Harlan

An avid container gardener in her former home of Las Vegas, Patti Harlan is thrilled to be living—and gardening– in her new home in Prescott. Her great work at Watters Garden Center carries over to her home garden, where you’ll find everything from cauliflower and chives to peas and pumpkins. Patti and her husband enjoy fishing for trout and hike the Prescott area as often as they can. They love strolling the Square, showing off pictures of their grandchildren, and the kindness of the folks in their new hometown. Patti’s also our resident Monarch Mama, having cared for and released more than a hundred Monarch Butterflies in her home garden this year.

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McKenzie Lain

McKenzie Lain literally has gardening experience in her blood as the 3rd generation of her family to carry on the Watters legacy. She is thrilled to be following in the footsteps of her parents and grandparents, and take the garden center to the next level under her ownership. Like her mother before her, McKenzie began her love with gardening as a cashier and by watering plants after school. Education became her major focus after high school, and she received a degree from Fresno Pacific University in Psychology and a Masters Degree in Marriage and Family Counseling from Fuller Theological Seminary. Now, she’s passionate about making sure Watters Garden Center continues to be a major part of the Prescott community by providing jobs and educating the public on the best gardening practices for success. She has spearheaded the only Rare and Exotic Tropical Houseplant selection in northern AZ, searching for plants from the jungles of South America to South East Asia. While supporting local organizations like Prescott Area Young Professionals and the Prescott Chamber of Commerce, McKenzie loves running through the garden center with her Mini-Schnauzers, playing pick-up basketball, and hiking our local trails.

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Paul Auer

Watering Wonder and King of Obscure Latin Plant Names, Paul Auer’s lifelong love for plants led to a degree in Forestry and years with the Forest Service and the BLM. How tough can it be to keep thousands of plants from drying out in the brutal Arizona sun? Paul can tell you, as it’s his job to make sure all our beautiful plants are well watered and happily hydrated. The Master of the Moisture Meter, Paul is a fountain of knowledge on local plants and their pasts, and can often be found making a short story long. He’s been a Prescott resident for more than twenty years, a musician for even longer, and loves spending time in our forests with his wife and sons.

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Christy Wilson

Our Christy Wilson has gardening literally in her blood, as her grandfather owned a nursery for years in the midwest. She puts her family’s roots work as part of the Watters watering team (a Hydrologist, if you ask her), and believes in talking to the plants as much as the customers. Christy’s quick with a comeback, or a sassy story to savor, like when she was told she was too short to be a flight attendant or shared an elevator with J. Edgar Hoover during her time with the FBI. She’s known as “Mrs. Kravitz” around the garden center for her uncanny ability to know everyone’s business. Fearless and fun, she can be content in her vegetable garden or cooking rattlesnake and is in heaven surrounded by her family, both human and canine.

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Patty Tolbert

As our tiniest team member, Patty Tolbert puts up with a lot of sass from her coworkers but takes it all in stride with an eye-roll and a smile. Part of the Watters watering team, she’s at the garden center with the rising sun making sure our green friends stay healthy and hydrated. A resident of Prescott for 40 years, 15 spent as an educator, Patty adores plants and dogs and divides her time between her Prescott mountain cabin and visiting her son in Globe.

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Tommy Shultz

Tommy Shultz started his adventure at Watters being happily retired from a lifetime in the construction business. Unfortunately for Tommy, the team at quickly realized he was capable of fixing everything we break, and making the garden center glorious with his incredible wood working talents. His beautiful creations grace all parts of the facility, from custom recycled wood endcaps to our complete store remodel. Tommy loves volunteering in the Prescott community, his friends, his family, and his two not-spoiled-at-all chihuahuas. An artist with a chainsaw and force of nature with a nail gun, it’s easy to find him by his constant whistling. Unfortunately for the team, he only knows about five songs.

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Ken Davis

Ken owned his own software company in New Hampshire and moved to Prescott with the intention of blissful retirement. Lucky for us, Ken decided he wasn’t quite ready to retire and joined the Watters Marketing team. A wizard with a camera and various temperamental electronics, he can be found at the garden center videotaping the ‘Saturday Morning Garden Classes‘ and guiding our Social Media presence, while rocking a nautical-themed sweater and a New England accent. Ken and his wife Patricia, are proficient in the art of trading one-liners, and in discovering the latest, greatest northern Arizona wines.

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Cheryl Christensen

Cheryl Christensen is the only Watters team member with two very different and distinct titles. As our Rose Queen, Cheryl is responsible for the care and feeding of 600 plus roses every spring, which she accomplishes with a combination of sweetness, sweat, and swearing (If 600 roses each have hundreds of thorns…). Bad bugs beware, because in her second role, The Annihilator, Cheryl inspects every plant in the garden center and checks for nasty pests or diseases hurting our green friends. When she finds them—you guessed it– they’re ANNIHILATED. With decades of nursery experience, and just as much bartending, she can also whip out some incredible cocktails faster than you can holler, “Aphids!”

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Doreen Storz

The wizard behind the back office curtain, Doreen Storz is our books balancer, number cruncher, and accountant extraordinaire. She’s able to leap mountains of paperwork in a single bound and the only Watters team member that can handle a full day at a desk. Her amazing arithmetic ability might just be hereditary, as her mother was also a bookkeeper in her native New England. Doreen attended Connecticut State University’s Accounting Program, and has been balancing bills for commercial businesses and regular Joes ever since. Loved year-round by her family and friends, she becomes even more popular at tax time. She’s been all over northern Arizona’s back roads on ATV’s and Side-by-Sides since moving to Prescott nearly three decades ago. As crafty as she is with an adding machine, Doreen also wields a mean glue gun while creating unique jewelry and crafts. A camping connoisseur, she’s regularly spotted piloting her RV—or her golf cart–into the sunset with her two rescue Maltese in the copilot seat.

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Lisa Watters-Lain

Lisa Watters Lain is the absolute heart of our operation, working in her family-owned garden center since she was old enough to hold a hose. She’s the engine that CAN, and powers the machine started by her parents more than 60 years ago. Lisa’s Master’s Degree in Education, Arizona Nursery Professional certificate, and a lifetime of nursery experience have created a superhero plant professional, who identifies local plants and what’s ailing them faster than a speeding bullet. You can read her garden advice columns in ‘Prescott Woman Magazine‘ and ‘ Prescott Living Magazine‘ and hear her on the Mountain Gardener Radio Show and ‘PodCast‘ with husband Ken every weekend. A board member for several local non-profit organizations, Lisa believes in giving back to her hometown community by donating her time and resources through beautification projects, like those at Taylor Hicks Elementary School and Agape House. She balances her roles as Owner, General Manager, wife, mother, dog lover, and fierce community supporter using her superpowers of compassion, sarcasm, and a heavy dose of Star Trek knowledge.

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Ken Lain

Known by his friends as ‘The Mountain Gardener,’ Watters’ Owner Ken Lain has gardened and farmed in the region for 30 years and knows the best techniques for gardening in the high mountain climates. A local who graduated from Prescott High School, Yavapai College, and ASU, Ken is passionate about plants, landscape design, and spreading the good news that gardening can be easy and fun. A Master Gardener and Certified Nursery Professional, you can read his local garden advice published weekly in ‘PrescotteNews‘ and the Prescott Daily Courier, or hear Ken and wife Lisa on their Mountain Gardener Radio Show and ‘PodCast‘ every weekend. As the David of the family-owned nursery versus the Goliaths of the Big Box Stores, Ken believes in family, community, and giving more than you receive. The outdoors are his livelihood and playground, and Ken and his family spend as much time as they can in our mountains and lakes while working to make their family business succeed.