Sam was born and raise in Hong Kong. He traveled to the United States at the age of 22. He attended Illinois State University graduating with a bachelor's degree in computer science and a minor in accounting. He has since completed his MBA. While still an undergraduate student, Sam was employed by Country Insurance and Financial Services based in Bloomington-Normal, Illinois. He retired January, 2008 from Country Insurance and Financial Services as a Senior Software Developer in their Information Systems Division. Sam is now concentrating, full time, on his orchid growing business.
Sam met Jeanie Ting while studying at the university. Jeanie is also from Hong Kong. They were married in May, 1983.
He began growing orchids in the early 1980's. After trying many types of orchids, he became a serious Paphiopedilum grower in 1985. In 1990, he began hybridizing with Paphiopedilums and continues that work today. As he became more involved with Paphiopedilums, he started selling commercially in 1995 as the Orchid Inn. He grew orchids in his basement and greenhouses attached to his house. As the business grew, in 2004, he purchased six acres of property and built his first commercial 6,000 square feet greenhouse. Currently he makes over 300 crosses, produces 4,000 to 5,000 flasks or approximately 100.000 seedlings annually.
In the past 27 years, Sam has been very active in the orchid world by traveling to shows, promoting sales, and lecturing. Sam currently fills orders from around the world and attends over 20 orchid shows/conferences a year. He also presents approximately 25 Paphiopedilum programs/lectures to orchid conferences, societies and groups annually in the USA, Canada, Japan, Australia and Europe. Over the past 23 years, he has judged at the Japan Grand Prix, the world's largest orchid show.
Hybridizing is Sam’s passion. He emphasizes Paphiopedilum species, Brachypetalum, Parvisepalum and Multifloral hybrids. He only selects the best, most vigorous parent plants in his collection for breeding/hybridizing. He continues to improve his breeding stock by selecting plants or flasks from his fellow orchid growers that he believes are outstanding examples of their type.
As a result of Sam’s breeding program, his orchids have been honored with approximately three hundreds and eighteen awards (as of July, 2019) from the American Orchid Society, Cymbidium Society of America and European Orchid Congress. His most prestigious awards include Seventeen First Class Certificate (FCC/AOS) awards; six Cultural awards including an 93 points Certificate of Cultural Excellence (CCE/AOS) award; and seven breeder Award of Quality (AQ/AOS) awards. All these awards are from American Orchid Society. Two of our recent Paphiopedilum rothschildianum sibling cross have been awarded with two GM/DOG and also the Grand Champion at the Dresden International Orchid Show in Germany both in March 2017. And another our Paphiopedilum charlesworthii fma. album has been awarded GM/DOG in January, 2018. Last but not the least, we did it again at the Dresden International Orchid Show in Germany March 2018, one of our Paphiopedilum lowii fma. album have been awarded with GM/DOG and also the Grand Champion of the show again.
