Meet Shea Hansen | Landscape Architect & Arborist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Shea Hansen and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Shea, how do you think about risk?
I think everyone has a different level of risk-taking that they are comfortable with. I also think that risk-taking is demonstrated by people we know or admire, so risk-taking can be learned, but it can also be something that’s in our blood. Any kind of risk-taking usually requires aligning yourself with others who hold that same level of risk-acceptance, because none of what successful people do is done all on our own. We are surrounded by others who believe in us and accept the level of risk that we have presented to them. Whether it is financial support or employees who are coming to work for a start-up, everyone involved, at some point, has accepted the risk. I also believe that if you take a risk and are successful at achieving the goal you set out to achieve then it makes it more likely that you will take further risks in the future, and that you may begin to fear failure less and potentially increase your tolerance for risk-taking. For me personally, I know I come from a long line of risk-takers. Learning about my ancestry has shown me that there were many in my lineage who were entrepreneurs and who traveled great distances to find success. So, in many ways, the urge to start my own company felt like a natural progression, almost impossible not to do.
Risking-taking has also expressed itself in my life through my desire for self-knowledge. I think we learn more about ourselves when we place ourselves in situations where we are not completely confident or comfortable, and that it is through those situations that we begin to know ourselves. Without risking my sense of security, self-actualization seems that much harder. The decisions I’ve made around travel, education, personal health, finances and becoming a business owner could all be categorized as risky decisions that fortunately turned out to benefit to me.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I am someone who has had many different types of jobs in my life. I got a BFA in Fine Arts and while in school I was an art teacher, I ran art galleries, I worked in an art supply store and managed a custom frame shop – but none of those jobs felt right and I knew I didn’t have it in me to be a “starving artist”. I went back to school and received a master’s degree in Landscape Architecture, which was a profession I honestly had not heard of until I began the program. I think the obscurity of the profession remains true today, with many people not knowing the type of training that landscape architects receive and what they are qualified to do professionally. But regardless, it was finally a career that I could see myself devoting my life too. It allowed me to combine my love of art, nature, science, technology and creating. So, upon graduating I went to work for a midsized, multi-disciplinary design firm that had a focus in transportation. I worked with city planners, engineers, environmentalist, and a wonderful group of landscape architects that I gratefully learned so much from. More than the actual skills and understanding of design and construction, I was encouraged to be hungry for knowledge and to continue to grow and test myself professionally and personally. I felt passionate about preservation of the urban canopy and before passing my licensure exam to be a landscape architect, I became a certified arborist. This gave me more useful knowledge when it came to understanding how the natural and built environment interface and what design could do to allow them to work together.
After ten years, my professional journey took a turn and I felt compelled to start my own company. As can be imagined there were challenges and obstacles for me to navigate, but I learned that meeting those challenges head-on and asking for help typically resulted in success. No matter what the difficulty there was always someone who was willing to help and because of that it’s been a priority for me to pay-it-forward.
As a professional, I believe in providing a good product and exceeding expectations, but not at the expense of my health or the health of my employees. As a business owner, I feel like I have more control over balancing my personal life and work and I try to do that for my staff as well. Our work at Monarch focuses on transportation and we’ve been able to create more biodiversity within the urban environment of South Florida, reestablish mangrove habits along roadways in the Florida Keys and care for urban tree canopy – these are things that I’m extremely proud of.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
If my best friend were coming to town for a week I would definitely take her to the following places:

Coffee destinations – Resurrection Coffee and Cali Coffee
Breakfast destinations – Untoasted and the Garden Grill
Lunch destinations – Swami Juice and the Georgia Pig BBQ
Dinner destinations – Red Rooster and Kuro
Dessert destinations – Parlour Bakery and the Dairy Belle and the Coconut Cream Pie at the GA Pig deserves an honorary mention.
Cooking a home cooked meal – we’d shop at Brother’s farmers market and Delaware Chicken Farm and Seafood Market.

Hang outs with some eating options too –
Connecting with Nature – Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge and we’d also stop nearby at Bedner’s Farm Fresh Market;
Local Broward County parks – TY Park and Tree Tops Park;
I love to thrift shop so we’d go to The Swap Shop, estate sales, ReWynd vintage shop to say hello to owner Christina and Found Sound Record shop to say hi to owner Ralph;
A walk on the Hollywood Beach Boardwalk is always nice and we could eat at Pachamanka, a Peruvian restaurant or Istanbul, a Mediterranean Restaurant;
A trip to Miami to visit Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden;
Once a month my husband djs at Dante’s HiFi in Wynwood, so we’d go and watch him play music.
We’d take a trip to Homestead and the Redlands to visit plant nurseries, the Redland Market Village, eat some delicious Mexican food at Taqueria 5 Hermanos Food Truck, and visit the farmers market Robert is Here.
We could spend an afternoon at Tiki Tide – a locally owned Kava Bar – talking to the locals and the owner Debbie.
And of course, we’d go to the Dania Improv for some standup comedy and deep belly laughs 😊.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
When it comes to starting my business, I always say it would have looked very different without the support of my husband. He very much validated my need for change and was willing to go along for the ride, which did include a fair amount of sacrifice and cutting back. This type of support was critical, and it definitely added to my desire to succeed. And when the success did come, it felt shared and allowed us to meet other goals. Fulfilling some of our shared goals allowed me to better understand how I define success; without a doubt, I now know that sharing success is part of my definition of success.

Website: www.monarchladesign.com

Instagram: monarch_landscape_architecture

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sheahansen-monarch/