Steve Gonzalez has been growing orchids for over 40 years. He is originally from San Juan, Puerto Rico. He worked with orchids in a local garden center and then gained more experience working with the collection of the Botanical Gardens of the University of Puerto Rico, then to Pennock Gardens a largest wholesale/retail garden center on the Island at that time (i.e. like Bachman’s). After college, he returned to learn to grow orchids beside windows and under fluorescent lights and then under high-pressure sodium lamps in northern hemisphere basement. Most of his plants do grow outdoors in the summer months. Residing in Minnesota provides the opportunity to grow many types of plants which could never be grown in the Caribbean. Most of the plants he enjoys are intermediate temperature growing, which require slightly higher humidity. He has enjoyed exhibiting plants at the local meetings and regional orchid shows. Steve has traveled extensively walking through many orchid habitats and commercial greenhouses around the world. He has enjoyed observing habitat and cultivation of orchids in his native Puerto Rico, Northern Minnesota, Ecuador, Peru, Colombia, Brazil, Venezuela, and throughout Central America. He has also enjoyed visiting many museums and Botanical Centers in this hemisphere and the infamous Kew Royal Botanic Gardens in London.