WASHINGTON, D.C.— The American Nursery & Landscape Association (ANLA) and Bayer Advanced are partnering together to deliver the BAYER ADVANCED SCHOLARS program for the 2010 Management Clinic. For the second year of the program, 25 scholarships will be awarded to independent garden center owners or managers. The winning applications, will be judged on both merit and need with a minimum of 50 percent distributed to companies who experienced a decline in overall or plant-care category sales in 2009. Chris Bremen, head of marketing for Bayer Advanced, states, “Bayer Advanced's success is closely linked to the success of our customer base in the independent garden centers. ANLA’s Management Clinic helps build successful garden centers. So this is a natural fit.”

Now in its 38th year, the ANLA Management Clinic will be held in Louisville, Ky., Jan. 31 through Feb. 3, 2010. “This year our programming focuses on both the very real challenges presented by the economy and begins to look at what new opportunities might emerge on the front-edge of the recovery,” says Programming Committee co-chair, Mark Sandstrum, Sickles Market (NJ). Recipients of the Bayer scholarships will be selected from applications received through the ANLA.org and ManagementClinic.org Web site, and from applications submitted directly to Bayer representatives. All applications must be submitted no later than Dec. 1, 2009 and scholarships are limited to one per company. Visit www.ManagementClinic.org and visit the Sponsors page to download an application.