Meetings and Events

Bruce has been an avid collector and enthusiast for bromeliads for most of his life.  He first discovered bromeliads when he was about 13 (1975) and his passion for bromeliads has never wavered.  

He worked for a small plant store in East Lansing, Michigan where he grew up and through this association was able to acquire new plants and information.  A formative friendship developed between Bruce and Louis Wilson who was a bromeliad enthusiast and collector in addition to being an entomologist at Michigan State University.  Louis took Bruce to meetings of the Southeast Michigan Bromeliad Society in Detroit from 1975 until Bruce left for the University of Florida in 1980.  

Bruce's first collecting and observation trip to see bromeliads in habitat was a trip to Jamaica in 1976.  Bruce wrote an article about the adventure and it was published in the BSI Journal later that year.  Since that trip, Bruce has been on trips to see bromeliads in habitat many times with notable trips to Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Belize, Mexico and most recently to Colombia.

He has been a member of the BSSF for more than 30 years, joining the San Francisco club in 1993.  He was President for several years in the 1990s.   Bruce has a small garden and unheated greenhouse in San Francisco where he grows and nurtures his plants.  He's most keen for bromeliads that thrive in tropical montane areas where the cool temperatures are similar to the climate in San Francisco.