Harland and Barbara live in DeLand, Florida in the restored home in which Barbara grew up.

They both grew up in DeLand in the 1950s and 1960s. They have known each other since Kindergarten and lived down the block from each other during their childhood and youth.

While at Stetson University, they grew a strong friendship. Barbara majored in Education and Physical Education. Harland majored in Mathematics and Physics.

They married just before their Senior Year at Stetson, in a wedding on a Sunday morning as part of worship at First Presbyterian Church.

After graduation in 1972, they moved from DeLand to Princeton, New Jersey to explore a call to ministry.

Barbara began teaching preschoolers while they were in Princeton. Through the years she has continued to teach young children, culminating her career teaching 3 and 4 year olds in a lab school at Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas.

Harland was ordained as Minister in the Presbyterian Church and has served congregations in Martinsville Virginia, Raleigh North Carolina, Dallas Texas, and Beaumont Texas. He also branch transferred into the Army Chaplain Corps, serving both Army Reserve and Active Duty units. He achieved the rank of Colonel and finished his military career serving as Division Chaplain in the 90th and the 75th Divisions.

These days, after returning to DeLand in 2015, after being away for 42 years, Barbara and Harland are enjoying their neighbors, providing leadership in several organizations, growing lots of plants, and being able to sit next to each other in worship again.

Barbara works with others in the local Garden Club attracting Butterflies and promoting the choice of Florida native plants for the garden. She has helped to certify over 200 local Monarch USA gardens.

Harland continues to hybridize dalylilies. He has about 600 seedlings in the garden. He crosses one flower with another in search of certain qualities in the seedlings. He gives away scores of plants every year and has created (with God’s help) a few excellent cultivated varieties.

Here is one of them.

Harland continues to teach dozens of adults in our local church a couple times a week. He also preaches about once a month.

His work these days includes real estate investing, including managing a local portfolio of rental properties, and managing a syndicated 129 unit apartment complex in Tallahassee. He leads a monthly meetup group of local investors, helping them learn how to invest wisely and ethically.

He recently served as University Chaplain for a year at Stetson during an interim vacancy there.

One of his favorite activities is facilitating small masterminds of successful business and professional leaders. The goal is to create a container in which the members can get support, achieve breakthroughs at work and at home, have access to the experiences and knowledge and connections of others… Jump over to the Mastermind page for more about this.

Harland writes a Blog everyday. Click here to engage with some of his thoughts, idea, challenges.