AmericanHort recently announced the election of new officers and members to the board of directors, according to a news release:

• Dale Deppe, owner at Spring Meadow Nursery in Grand Haven, MI, was elected chairman of the board.

• Terri Cantwell, owner at Bates Sons & Daughters in Lake Placid, FL, was elected vice chairman.

• Mark Foertmeyer, owner at Foertmeyer & Sons Greenhouses in Delaware, OH, will become the immediate past chairman.

The Society of American Florists announced in a news release that Shawn McBurney joined its staff as the new senior director of government relations.

“Shawn has an impressive breadth and depth of experience in government relations having worked on the Hill, for the federal government, for a nonprofit and a trade association,” said SAF chief operating officer Drew Gruenburg in the release.

The Floral Marketing Research Fund, in collaboration with the American Floral Endowment, released findings from a recent study of funeral directors. The downloadable free report includes thoughts and preferences on sympathy flowers, charity donations vs. flowers, consumers’ reactions toward sympathy flowers, the relationship between floral retailers and funeral directors and more, according to a news release.

Herman Hamer, chief executive officer at Florensis, based in The Netherlands, was elected by the membership as Fleuroselect’s 19th president.

Fleuroselect is an international organization for the ornamental plant industry that includes the testing, protecting and promoting of new flower varieties.

Membership includes breeders, producers and distributors of ornamental varieties.

Fleuroselect is run by the members and a board of elected members is supported by various specialized committees.

Hamer has been a board member for 12 years.

The International Association of Horticultural Producers will hold its spring meeting March 18-19 in Paris, France, according to a news release. The AIPH is a coordinating body representing horticultural producers’ organizations from all over the world. It was set up in Switzerland in 1948 to stimulate international marketing of flowers, plants and landscaping services and currently includes 26 growers’ organizations from more than 19 countries.

Gerberas are beautiful, trendy flowers that have some unique common problems. They are highly sensitive to bacteria because of the hairy nature of their stems, which causes short vase life, hanging blooms and crooked stems. So Chrysal International decided to develop a flower food specifically for Gerberas to help combat these problems.