Previous interns – now employees, share their perspectives, advice and insights about all things landscape architecture and their experiences with EDSA.

Henry’s interest in landscape architecture goes back to high school, but his journey at EDSA began in 2025. While completing his bachelor’s degree in landscape architecture at the University of Florida, he started as a summer intern in Orlando, continuing remotely through the fall. Henry now works full-time in our Fort Lauderdale office on the Entertainment team, contributing to design of thrilling attractions and unique destinations across the globe. We sat down with him to talk about his passion for the profession, the importance of mentorship and his path from an intern to a full-time team member.

A: My first experience with landscape architecture was through a drafting and design program I was in during high school. One of our end of the year projects was to design a house in AutoCAD. Every time I’d finish early, my teacher told me to create another one or try to design the surrounding outdoor areas. She was the one who explained what landscape architecture was. At the time, what I was learning was just residential design, but that was my introduction to something bigger. Then, after exploring civil engineering and realizing it wasn’t quite the right fit for me, I decided to give landscape architecture a try. The more I looked into it, the more interested I became. I found UF’s program, took the leap, and ended up absolutely loving it.

A: In UF’s program, you take two studio field trips – one sophomore year and then one junior year. The sophomore trip was in South Florida and I was able to experience Fort Lauderdale, Miami, Sanibel, Fort Myers and Tampa. Our second stop on the trip was at EDSA. Before even walking through the door, just showing up to the headquarters, I was like, yeah, this is going to be great. Then CEO Scott LaMont and Sam Rivera with HR showed us around, talked to us about what they do and the type of projects they are involved in. And then it clicked for me – this was somewhere I would like to work. Following the field trip, I looked more into EDSA’s work, the teams that they have, and what the teams do and that’s when entertainment specifically caught my eye.

A: I would say my first mentor was Jeff Sugar. I met him at the career fair at UF. I had met him loosely before, but the career fair was the first time I got to sit down with him and just talk about ESDA. He was the one who said, “I would really like you to be on the Entertainment team with me”. And then that’s when the internship started.

A: I would say you have to be open to learning, even in uncomfortable situations. There are certain things in our field that are not exactly easy to do. When it comes to software, especially if software is not your skill set, that’s fine, but you need to be open. It’s about going outside your comfort zone to get better with technology or business development – whatever you feel your weakest point is. I think you need to be comfortable bolstering that weak point.

A: I would say, curiosity. EDSA has a lot of very interesting projects and that is because everyone here is so curious. No one’s shying away from anything, and we’re always questioning, “Oh, can we do this? Oh, can we do this better?” So on and so forth. It’s the culture here and the work that we do…we are very curious.

A: Be okay with the uncomfortable feeling of learning something new and just enjoy your time. Whether as an intern or a full-time employee, make sure you enjoy what you are doing because that will make everything much easier and more fun!