Rob Eddy on Why the Design & Construction Industry Needs Horticulture Education

Controlled Environment Agriculture Rob Eddy on Why the Design & Construction Industry Needs Horticulture Education by Sepehr Achard 2nd April 2026 Rob Eddy. Image provided by Resource Innovation Institute. Key Takeaways The Resource Innovation Institute (RII) identified a gap in the U.S. controlled environment agriculture (CEA) industry: no centralized certification program existed for the trades workforce designing, building, and maintaining greenhouse facilities. Rob Eddy spent nearly a year developing an online course aimed at non-horticulturists — contractors, equipment vendors, designers, and builders — to give them a foundational understanding of crop science and how their work impacts plant health. The program was trialed by summer interns and a full-time engineer at Arco Murray, one of the country's largest design-build firms, who provided 20–30 pages of feedback that shaped the final curriculum. Industry partners, including Vertical Harvest, pushed for food safety content to be placed at the very beginning of the course — a change Eddy adopted immediately. The course is hosted on The Ohio State University's Canvas platform through the Ohio Controlled Environment Agricultural Center (OHCEAC), lending the program institutional infrastructure and credibility. Filling the Trades Gap in Controlled Environment Agriculture When Rob Eddy joined the Resource Innovation Institute (RII) about three and a half years ago, he brought with him decades of hands-on greenhouse expe...