August 15, 2008
By Sally Harvey CLT, CLP
Education and Labour Development Department

Sally HarveyAn era has come to an end. It’s the Terry Murphy era, created by a man who served many years as LO’s manager of human resources development. Terry is an incredible leader, who motivated his staff and all who had the opportunity to work with him. He encouraged everyone to achieve more, and be the best that we can be. I have had the special opportunity to work side-by-side with Terry during the past six weeks. My respect for his achievements grows daily! At every meeting we attended, he was honoured for his many contributions by each and every organization. Terry led many towards a pathway to success through his dedication to develop our industry’s workforce. We owe Terry a great deal of appreciation for creating the human resource department at Landscape Ontario that has flourished over the last 14 years.

I am confident that Terry will be sure to redefine ‘retirement!’ I am also sure that we will continue see him in the halls of LO once again, whenever we can entice him with a project that he is able to fit into to his new schedule. We wish Terry every happiness on his new journey.
 

Foundation for the future

The foundation created by Terry and his staff will now grow into a new department under the Industry Professional and Workforce Development Team. Members of this team include Kathy McLean, Ashleigh Woodhall, Ken Tomihiro and me, Sally Harvey. We look forward to working with the industry to create additional partnerships, as we strive to fulfill the goal mandated by the provincial board that identified human resource development as LO’s top priority. Our goal is to build on the professional and technical development programs and the services offered in the past, aligning them with the pillars of the Prosperity Partnership program and serving the industry with relevant opportunities that will continue to create and develop a labour force to meet the needs of our growing industry — now and in the future.

As our team embarks on this challenge under our new title, we owe a great big thank you to Terry Murphy, who made this possible. I have been reminded regularly in the past weeks, that we will never be able to fill his shoes. This we know, however: Terry’s legacy will provide us the exciting opportunity to create our own new footprint.

Cheers, Terry!
 
Sally Harvey can be reached at sharvey@landscapeontario.com