Steve Hootman is the Executive Director of Horticulture & Curator of the Rhododendron Species Botanical Garden in Federal Way, Washington. He has worked at the RSBG since 1992 and has participated in or led at least thirty expeditions into the remote regions of the world looking for rare and new taxa of rhododendrons and other plants. Steve is considered one of the world authorities on the genus Rhododendron as well as woodland gardening and has introduced many dozens of rhododendrons and other ornamental plants into cultivation.