Art Glenn is a Kiawah Island resident and trustee of the Kiawah Conservancy . As a child , Glenn grew up on a farm just three miles from the campus of Penn State , where he would eventually study mechanical engineering before graduating in 1956 and beginning work as a rocket scientist at Fort Bliss , a U . S . Army base in New Mexico . His early experience led him to a position at General Electric where he led teams that worked on research and development projects for antiballistic missile systems , the CAT scan , and the MRI machine . His work at GE culminated in his being named vice president of the company and overseeing the defense arm of the business with its more than 18,000 employees . For Art , the business of leadership was all about communication and learning what elements of a process are the most critical . Coming from the world of working missile defense systems using highly technical radar equipment helped him to quickly understand the early technology of the CAT scan and figure out how best to implement it . In the case of the CAT scan , Glenn positioned the company to focus on its use for diagnosing spinal issues , which became an integral part of the business and brought GE from being outcompeted by foreign technology companies to overtaking 65 % of the world market share .
Glenn and his family first visited Kiawah Island in 1981 while living in Milwaukee and bought a condo on the island three years later . In 2007 , they built a house on Eugenia Avenue , which became their permanent residence in 2017 . The same critical analysis and problem-solving skills that Glenn employed in his professional life have now come to bear in his garden . For the past few years , he ’ s been working alongside the Conservancy to create a database of native plants , using his own yard as a laboratory to understand what plants work best in certain types of soil and sun conditions . He ’ s also built log structures along the treeline in his backyard to hopefully serve as a nesting habitat for bobcats and helped develop a methodology for local arborists to approach management of trees in a way that preserves the overstory and understory to ensure the best possible habitat for wildlife . With all of these nature-focused pursuits , Glenn is finding new methods to bring critical thinking into his garden : “ In order to satisfy my pleasure , I want to think strategically ,” Glenn says . “ What brings me joy is doing good things .”
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