Features Profiles
Sheridan CEO-president retiring after decades long career

July 17, 2018 – After a career spanning five decades, Karl Stensson – CEO and president of Sheridan Nurseries – is retiring.

“It has been an honour to have worked with so many talented and dedicated people at Sheridan to help the company grow into the leader that it is today,” he said.

Sheridan Nurseries has been a grower and purveyor of plant material for the landscape industry and gardening public since 1913. It has become one of Canada’s largest growers of hardy nursery plants and has eight garden centres in the Greater Toronto Area.

Stensson spent eight summers working in Sheridan Garden Centres during high school and university. After graduating with a bachelor of landscape architecture from the University of Guelph, he joined the City of Toronto as a parks planner and shortly thereafter moved to the City of North York as coordinator of park planning and design.

In 1976, Stensson answered a call to return to Sheridan as wholesale sales manager and remained in that position until he took over retail operations in 1984. He was later appointed vice-president of retail operations and subsequently became president in 2009 and then CEO and president in 2015.

During his career, he was a staunch industry supporter, serving on the Landscape Ontario board from 1978 to 1985, becoming president in 1979. He also served on the board of the Canadian Nursery Trades Association from 1978 to 2001 (which subsequently became the Canadian Nursery Landscape Association), becoming president in 1989-1990.

Stensson furthered his association involvement by becoming president of the Landscape Ontario Horticultural Trades Foundation from 1982-1984 and president of the Canadian Garden Council in 1991-1992. He has served on the LO insurance committee for more than 30 years and as chairman of the Landscape Ontario Building Committee for the past 12 years.

Many awards have been bestowed on him, including:

•    The Frank Ewald Jr., Nursery Award in 1980, presented to someone under 30 years of age, for Outstanding contribution to Landscape Ontario.
•    The Landscape Ontario Trillium Award in 1994 for outstanding support of the horticultural industry and Landscape Ontario.
•    Honorary life member of Landscape Ontario in 1998.
•    CNLA President’s Award in 2010 for lifelong and outstanding contribution to the industry.

Most recently, he was honoured in 2015 as being the University of Guelph Alumnus of Honour for “achieving excellence through outstanding accomplishments and exemplary contributions to society that bring credit to the University of Guelph.”

Over the past several months, the board of dDirectors of Sheridan Nurseries have conducted an extensive search for Stensson’s replacement and will shortly announce his successor. He will continue in a reduced capacity as vice executive chairman and director of brand integrity for Sheridan.

In his retirement, Stensson will be pursuing positions on corporate boards as well as spending time golfing and cooking with his wife, Valerie, and spending more time with his four grandchildren (soon to be five).