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Before devoting herself wholeheartedly to gardening, Madeline de Vries Hooper forged a trailblazing career in public relations, beginning at Bergdorf Goodman in the days when the Goodman family still owned the store. She was appointed PR Director at the age of 23, and among her responsibilities was creating fashion shows for all the top European and American designers, including Hubert de Givenchy and Halston. Seven years later, she left to have a baby.
In 1978, after several years doing freelance public relations work, Madeline opened her own agency, which grew to become the nation's leading firm-known as DeVries Global-specializing in marketing public relations. Its expertise covered a broad spectrum of categories and represented industry powerhouses in fashion, beauty, retail, luxury products, wines, household goods and pharmaceuticals. A turning point in the agency was winning the Procter & Gamble (P&G) beauty business, going on to become P&G's top PR agency in the United States, representing many of their iconic brands for more than 25 years. In 2002, Madeline won the Matrix Communication Award for public relations. In 2005, DeVries was acquired by the Interpublic Group, and Madeline is proud that the agency has continued to grow and thrive worldwide.
Madeline's commitment to the business world is matched by her enthusiasm for physical activity, which includes tennis, ballroom dancing and gardening. She became one of the top amateur dancers in the country, competed in major tournaments, turned professional and taught dance in her own studio. Eventually, however, gardening took over.
Madeline has honed her gardening skills at Rockland Farm, an extensive ten-acre property in upstate New York that she and her husband have developed from scratch over the past 25 years. She continues her education by taking courses and attending lectures and has visited many of the finest gardens in the United States and Europe, building relationships with leading horticulturalists and garden designers. Madeline was invited to become a trustee of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and then of the Berkshire Botanical Garden, where she has been Vice Chair for the past ten years. Her daily gardening resulted in many aches and pains, but the common-sense body movements her personal trainer Jeff Hughes taught her relieved those pains and inspired them to create the public television series GardenFit and national GET GardenFit workshops. Their mission is to teach gardeners how to take care of their bodies while taking care of their gardens.
Madeline lives with her husband in Columbia County, New York, where they devote themselves to maintaining Rockland Farm and open it a few times a year for the benefit of The Garden Conservancy's Open Days program and the Berkshire Botanical Garden's educational programs.
