Pennsylvania Turfgrass – Julie Holt, Content Director, TheTurfZone.com
KAFMO’s Brad Jakubowski Honored with 2020 STMA Founder’s Award
When Penn State Plant Science instructor and KAFMO Board member Brad Jakubowski learned that he was slated to receive a 2020 STMA Founder’s Award, he says he was “utterly speechless and humbled. I felt so honored being considered for an award for an association I’ve grown to love.” Brad joins three other KAFMO members as recipients of the Daniel Founder’s Award for educators (Jeff Fowler in 2005, Dr. Andrew McNitt in 2000, and Dr. Donald Waddington in 1999); he is the tenth KAFMO member to receive an STMA Founder’s Award.
STMA’s highest honors, the Founders’ Awards, recognize those members who have made significant contributions to STMA and to the profession. Founder Dr. William Daniel set the pattern for educator/researcher involvement in STMA. The partnership between educators and researchers and the sports turf managers who incorporate these advances on the field is key to the progress of the industry. The Daniel Award recognizes an individual who has made significant contributions to the industry through research, teaching, or extension.
Deep Roots
Brad Jakubowski is an instructor of golf course irrigation and drainage, landscape irrigation and water management, and turfgrass management in the Penn State Turfgrass Science program. He also manages PSU Turf Science’s digital presence. As a Ph.D. candidate, he is studying impact attenuation on natural and synthetic athletic turfgrass fields. Jakubowski has been involved with the green industry for nearly 30 years, working in the areas of residential/commercial irrigation, golf course, and sport field. He previously directed the two-year Sports Turf Management Pro- gram for the University of Nebraska and helped to develop their new Turfgrass and Landscape Management Degree Program.
Brad Jakubowski’s roots in Turf Management go deep. “I started in turfgrass as an eighth grader, taking care of an estate and working at a par 3 golf course,” he reminisces. “I built my first bunker with a skid steer loader back in 1987, and that bunker is still there.” His background in sports turf deepened while directing the University of Nebraska’s two-year sports turf management program. He had asked Tony Koski from Colorado State University where to take his students for a turf conference and heard about the STMA. “Tony said if you go there, you’ll never leave, and he was right. I didn’t.” He is a 15-year member of STMA, co-founder of the STMA Intercollegiate Student Challenge and recently served on the STMA board of directors. “There were and are so many mentors!” he says. Dr. Tom Samples gave him his first opportunity to speak at the Tennessee Turf Conference and is still one of his biggest supporters. He is also grateful to Mike Andresen, Lynda Wightman, Dave Minner, Tony Koski, Gwen Stahnke, Leah Brilman, and Andy McNitt. “Without them, my path in sports turf would have been extremely limited.”
Career High Points
When Jakubowski looks back on his career, this award is one of several high points. Another, he recalls, was the day they called him about his nomination to the STMA Board of Directors. “It was August, and I was working with a group of baseball players in rebuilding their pitcher’s mound. It definitely made pounding new clay a lot easier on a hot afternoon!” Another peak was helping to develop the STMA Student Challenge. He still remembers meeting with Chad Follis and Jeff Salmond in San Antonio years ago to discuss how to propose it. The first challenge in Phoenix had 13 teams competing. Since then, they commonly have over 30. “My biggest challenges have been working diligently to find or develop quality programming and education for the STMA membership. It’s a difficult association to outgive,” he says. “No matter how hard you try, they always have a way of giving back in abundance!”