Founder, Owner, President
Anita McCormick received her Bachelor’s degree in Fine Art at the University of Houston in 1984. While in college, she supported herself by performing landscape maintenance in the Clear Lake / League City area south of Houston. Her “part-time job” became the company, which is now Landscape Art.
One of her customers was a Shell station in Dickinson, Texas. It wasn’t too long before the station caught the attention of some of the Shell corporate folks in Houston. Within a few years, Anita was designing the landscaping for all of the Houston area Shell stations and Landscape Art was installing most of them.
As the company grew, the reputation of Anita and Landscape Art grew with it. Exxon decided that they were ready to improve their image and asked Anita to come up with a landscape concept that would be “different from and better than Shell”. What Anita came up with became the Exxon Signature Landscape. It was so successful that Landscape Art provided landscape and irrigation designs for all of the new Exxon retail company stores in Texas, Tennessee and Louisiana through the 1990's. Additionally, Anita has acted as a consultant for Exxon in Dallas, Memphis, Orlando, Nashville, Washington D.C. and Baltimore.
Anita was born in Alton, Illinois, has lived in the Houston area for over thirty years and is married. She is a Past-President of the Clear Lake Area Chamber of Commerce Toastmaster's Club and is a Past-President of the Lady's Golf Association at South Shore Harbour Country Club. She is a member of the Associated Landscape Contractors of America, Texas Landscape and Nurseryman's Association and is a Certified Landscape Professional (CLP #336) and a Texas Licensed Irrigator (LI7824).
Vice President, General Manager
Jay Williams came to Landscape Art in 1994 during a time of expansion and growth. His success in personnel management, his partial fluency in Spanish and his familiarity with business accounting, were important additions to the Landscape Art family.
Landscape Art has traveled to Tennessee and Florida and throughout Texas for construction projects for Exxon, Trammel-Crow and the Landmark Organization. For these out-of-town jobs, Jay has mobilized the workforce, arranging for accommodations and transportation, interviewed and set up a new group of vendors and handled various permits and registrations required by a myriad of local organizations and municipalities.
Jay has supervised the irrigation and landscape installation of more than one hundred Exxon retail stores and an equal number of other commercial projects. He has designed and built a lighted, floating Shell logo that was installed at the Shell Learning Center in the Woodlands. He has also designed and built two Shell logo displays (at the Tournament Player’s Course in the Woodlands and at Redstone Golf Course) for the Shell Houston Open. The structures are twenty feet in diameter, eight feet tall, constructed of cinder block, with natural rock veneer. It is filled with flowers for the tournament each year and has been displayed in the Houston Chronicle, Sports Illustrated and on live television broadcasts each year.
Jay also designed the building that Landscape Art occupies and chose and supervised the general contractor during the construction process. He is competent in Word, Excel and QuickBooks and has recently overseen the implementation of a scanner Job/Time/Task system for Landscape Art. This system provides unparalleled job cost tracking and employee productivity analysis.
During his tenure with Landscape Art, Jay has become a licensed irrigator (LI5635) and has dramatically increased his knowledge of landscape construction. He is a member of the Houston / Gulf Coast Irrigators Assoc., Associated General Contractors and the Texas Landscape and Nurseryman’s Association. Jay is the past chairman of Region 2 of the Texas Nursery and Landscape Association and sits on the State Education Committee and is the Chair of the Region 2 Education Committee.
Operations Manager
Carmelo Orellana started with Landscape Art in 1994 just after he graduated from Clear Creek High School. His ability to manage in the field, his fluency in Spanish and English and his devotion to accomplishing his tasks has made him indispensable to the Landscape Art family.
Carmelo has the distinction of being one of fewer than 100 landscapers in the State of Texas to complete all phases of the testing for the Certified Landscape Technician (CLT#233647) exam as designed by Planet (formerly Associated Landscape Contractors of America) and administered by TNLA. He is now an instructor at the Region 2 TNLA Winter Workshop training meetings and serves on the Education Committee of Region 2.
He is a licensed irrigator (LI7893) and has certifications that include “Certified Four Stroke and Two Stroke Engine Technician” from the Equipment & Engine Training Council and the ICPI Certified Concrete Paver Installer Program from the Interlocking Concrete Pavement Institute.
Carmelo's many accomplishments were recognized by the Texas Nursery and Landscape Association in 2010 as he became the first Hispanic recipient of the Young Leader Award. To be chosen from among literally tens of thousands of landscapers in the state is not only an incredible honor, but an indication of the dedication and professionalism that he continues to exhibit.
Corporate Secretary, Estimator, Purchaser
Dana McCormick first arrived in the Houston area in 1983 and immediately went to work with her sister at Landscape Art. Her effervescent personality and willingness to learn gave her a great reputation with the company’s clients, vendors and growers.
During her first decade with Landscape Art, Dana was responsible for the accounting, for the payroll and for the operation of the office. During these years, she became proficient in QuickBooks, in Excel and in Word.
In order improve accuracy and increase efficiency at Landscape Art, Dana created a comprehensive bid program in Excel, which is still in use today. More recently she has trained in On-Screen take-off programming and now handles all of the drawings, bid documents and specifications electronically.
Dana McCormick was born in Alton, IL, is a graduate of Alton High School in 1977 with a 4.0 GPA and has 24 credit hours earned at College of the Mainland in General Business. She now lives in League City and spends considerable time with her husband, raising their two wonderful children. She is the “Big Sister” to Courtney Goff in the “Big Brother/Big Sister”. She has been a member and volunteer of the Clear Lake Chamber of Commerce since 1989 and was the recipient of the 1999 Competent Toastmaster Award from the Clear Lake Chamber of Commerce Toastmaster’s Club.
Project Manager
Favio Orellana came to work for Landscape Art in 1998 during a time of growth. He applied himself with dedication and passion and quickly became a crew leader. Through years of on-the-job learning and observation, he regularly showed his skill in organizing and motivating workers.
After several years, Favio became a Project Manager and has managed crews of up to twenty workers, while constructed complicated projects up to one million dollars. Among the private development jobs that Favio has managed have been Telfair, Aliana and Eagle Springs. More recently, he has been the project manager for large public jobs at the University of Houston and the Uptown Development District.
Favio is a State of Texas Licensed Irrigator (LI 17188) and is one of fewer than 100 Certified Landscape Technicians in Texas. He has received rave reviews from Landscape Architects and Owners Representatives in his conduct, his honesty, his supervisory skills and his ability to build beautiful landscape projects.
Favio was born in El Salvador, is a naturalized U.S. citizen and is a husband and father of two wonderful boys.
Office Manager
Debbie Gerac came to Landscape Art in August 2006 to fill the accounting position and help with administrative duties. Although her strengths lie primarily in the financial and administrative functions of the company, she has acquired some horticultural knowledge along the way and is now a very valuable contributor to all aspects of Landscape Art’s activities.
Recently Debbie was the lead person in implementing the TimeScape payroll system, which utilizes personal scanners, job and task barcodes and mobile time tracking. Her skills with QuickBooks and Microsoft Office allowed for an almost seamless transition to this dynamic technology. Debbie produces the company payroll, develops extensive in-house financial reports, manages the office and is the Webmaster.
Debbie was born in Wichita, Kansas, graduated from Clear Creek High School, and has an Associate of Arts degree from San Jacinto College. She is married and the mother of three children and one grandchild.
Project Manager
Andrew Walton joined Landscape Art in 2012. He graduated from the University of Georgia's Terry College of Business in 2007, with a BBA in Real Estate. During his college years he worked part-time as an Assistant Project Manager for a small commercial Real Estate firm.
He began his professional career in 2007 at D.L. Meacham Construction located in the heart of Houston. There he developed from an Assistant Project Manager to Head Project Manager and Assistant Estimator. He has worked with several of Houston's premier developers like Newland Communities, Trendmaker Homes, The Woodlands Development Company, Friendswood Development Company, Houston Parks Board and The City of Houston.
Andrew has been a member of The Association of General Contractors 2007-2010 and The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo 2007-2010. He is currently working towards getting his Texas irrigator license.
Site Supervisor
Porfirio Martinez worked for Landscape Art from 1994 to 2000 and returned to us in February of 2007. In this time he has proven himself, not only as a hard worker, but also as a competent leader. He is safety oriented and communicates in both English and Spanish. He attended the 10 hour OSHA course on August 1, 2009 and the American Red Cross Standard First Aid Training on October 6, 2009.
Porfirio has recently taken the Irrigation Technician class and is now licensed by the State of Texas as an Irrigation Technician #IT0351.
Porfirio has worked on and lead many projects over the years including projects for the MD Anderson Cancer Center Campuses, University of Texas Medical Center Campuses, city and county parks, Element Hotel, and multiple grand entries and green spaces for developments across the city.
Site Supervisor
Santos joined Landscape Art in July of 2006. Since then he has excelled rapidly from a laborer to an equipment operator to a foreman and now a site supervisor and has established himself as a competent leader. He is safety oriented and communicates in both English and Spanish. He attended the 10 hour OSHA course on August 1, 2009 and the American Red Cross Standard First Aid Training on October 6, 2009.
Santos recently became an Irrigation Technician, licensed by the State of Texas under license #IT0365.
Santos has worked on and lead multiple projects since he has been with us including projects for the MD Anderson Cancer Center Campuses, University of Texas Medical Center Campuses, Rob Fleming Park in The Woodlands, hurricane repair for Galveston County, and multiple grand entries and green spaces for developments across the city.