Chris Strand
Charles F. Montgomery Director and CEO, Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library
Member since: 2025
Proposed by: The Garden Club of Wilmington, Zone V
Seconded by: The Gardeners, Zone V
A skilled horticulturist with a particular knowledge of witch hazels, Chris Strand has served as outreach horticulturist at The Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, director of Green Spring Gardens, and Brown Harrington Director of the 1,000-acre garden and estate at Winterthur prior to becoming the Charles F. Montgomery Director and CEO of the Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library in 2021. He is the first of Winterthur's ten directors promoted from within the organization and one of only four who did not come from the academic world of art history.
Throughout his career, Strand's management and communications skills, boundless energy, enthusiasm, and generosity of time and talent have underpinned his success at connecting gardens with the public. His work with community gardeners and farmers markets in Fairfax County, Virginia, coordination of summer interns and garden education at Pine Mountain, Georgia's Callaway Gardens, and oversight of a 265-member volunteer corps at The Arnold Arboretum in Boston have given hundreds of children and adults an enriched view of the natural world.
