My name is Jim Hawk and I was born and raised in Fort Wayne, Indiana. I've always hated the cold so I left there as soon as I could. I was a math geek at Indiana State University and finished my graduate work in photogrammetry and geodesy at Purdue. I spent 30 years working for the Defense Mapping Agency which included eight years living and working in Latin America and three years doing the same in Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia. All of that travel introduced me to tons of tropical fruit and I'm very much interested in growing it today on my acre of paradise just north of Tampa, Florida. I was very big into roses until I began to feel the fungicides and insecticides were killing me. So, I turned to orchids a couple of years ago and now have a collection of about 80, mostly vandas and catts. I've been a master gardener since 2003 and also do a lot of charity and church work, including singing bass in the choir. I met and married my wife Patty some 25 years ago in Peru. Bottom line...I'm blessed and thankful.
