The names go together; you seldom hear one without the other in the nursery industry.

Briggs' bulldoglike persistence 35 years ago brought the industry into a new age of plant production. Through micropropagation techniques Briggs developed at Olympia, Wash., Briggs Nursery next year will produce 9 million liners of kalmias, rhododendrons, French lilacs and other woody species. The horticultural world reaps the benefits of his work, because Briggs shares his techniques, and his vast knowledge, on every occasion.

Briggs has been selected by his peers as the NMPro's 1999 Nursery Grower of the Year. One of the panel members is William Flemer III of Princeton Nurseries in Allentown, N.J. Flemer was last year's selection as Grower of the Year.

"Bruce started from scratch one of the most outstanding nurseries in the USA devoted to plant propagation and the production of lining-out stock," Flemer said. "He is one of the pioneers in tissue culture propagation of woody plants, especially azaleas and rhododendrons. Bruce has been tireless in working for the benefit of the nursery industry on a state and regional level. He has an international reputation in the field of plant propagation."

The family farm

Briggs grew up in the nursery business, and was born and reared in a house near the nursery. His father, Orson Briggs, started the business as Briggs Fruit Farm after moving to Washington from Iowa in 1902 to work in logging camps.

"My dad always wanted to be in the nursery business," Briggs recalled, so in 1912 he started planting. His first crops were strawberries, raspberries, asparagus, cucumbers, sweet corn and horseradish, and later he planted 15 acres of tree fruits, apples, pears, prunes and cherries.

Drafted into the Army in 1941, Briggs credits his medical corps experience for teaching him the sanitation methods and knowledge of chemicals he later found essential in producing plants in test tubes. In 1947 when he returned home, Briggs found a declining market for fruit trees but an expanding one for ornamentals. So he went to work and "grubbed out fruit trees," replacing them with nursery stock. He soon found a partner who has remained by his side throughout his nursery career: his wife, Doris, a librarian in Olympia whom he met through a mutual friend. They were married in 1950.

Charles Parkerson of Lancaster Farms in Suffolk, Va., who has known Briggs for more than 25 years, called Doris "Bruce's 'helpmate.' She's been there every step of the way."

Another long-time friend is James Green, extension horticulturist for nursery and greenhouse crops at Oregon State University. Green said it's Briggs' determination to find answers that makes him successful -- and appreciated in the industry.

"The thing that really makes Bruce special is that when a problem arises he's willing to look at different directions," Green said. "We'd had a difficult time vegetatively propagating woody plants from cuttings. Bruce said, 'Let's look at tissue culture.'"

Convinced that rhododendrons could be successfully propagated by tissue culture, Briggs worked with and helped raise funding for Wilbur Anderson, a young Ph.D. at the Northwestern Experiment Station of Washington State University. With Anderson's scientific expertise from studying under Tosh Murishige, Briggs' knowledge of growing rhododendrons and the input of other nurserymen in the area, Anderson made a breakthrough and produced rhododendrons by tissue culture in the early 1960s.

Then came several years of working out the protocol. Briggs' first laboratory was the kitchen in his dad's old home. With hands-on experience, he learned the importance of light, temperature and techniques in using proper equipment. Briggs and Anderson continue seeking more information from others in the United States and Europe. Les Clay and Bob Hart aided materially in developing techniques.

Making the system work

After the techniques were established, more room was needed for propagation, and the old kitchen eventually gave way to a tissue-culture lab, which today would rival any such facility in the industry.

"Bruce brought kalmia into the marketplace," Green said. He received the American Society for Horticultural Sciences Industry Division Award in 1998 for his work.

Truly, Briggs' awards are legion. He has been honored by local, state, national and international organizations. One of his most cherished is the International Plant Propagators' Society Award of Merit in 1981.

"Bruce truly believes in the IPPS motto, 'to seek and to share,'" Green said. "He's a worldwide traveler, seeking information and providing information. He's able to get others to share; he has that friendly, outgoing demeanor that encourages others to open up."

"When you share, you get something back," Briggs explained. "When you don't share, you don't get anything back."

Head office: Bruce A. Briggs, chairman emeritus; Gary E. Briggs, chief executive officer; and Dave Jarzynka, president.
Founded: 1912 by Orson Briggs as Briggs Fruit Farm.
Size: 120 acres at Olympia, 400 acres at Porter, Wash.
Number of employees: 200 "employee-owners" who share company's profits.
Company motto: Quality that Grows.
Crops produced: Broadleaf and deciduous trees and shrubs, vines, conifers, flowering perennials and more than 400 selections of rhododendrons. Largest producer of rhododendrons in the world.
Market: Landscapers, retailers and growers in 38 states and 17 countries; all sales wholesale.
For more: Briggs Nursery Inc., 4407 Henderson Blvd., Olympia, WA 98501; (800) 999-9972; fax (360) 352-5699; www.briggs
nursery.com