About Us
Judy Allmon is principal of Bluestem Services.
Judy's career began in 1977 as designer for the Missouri Department of Conservation. In 1983, she joined the Missouri Department of Natural Resources-State Parks. Her position emphasized historic and recreational landscape management as well as building renovation and interior design for cabins, lodges and historic state buildings. In 1988, she launched Westway Group, a Seattle-based company that offered turnkey commercial interior design and furnishings for healthcare and hospitality projects in the Pacific Northwest and Rocky Mountain regions and averaged over $10,000,000 annually in projects.
She returned to Missouri in 1999 and created SmartBiz, a consulting company that offered creative marketing and program development outsourcing to Midwest businesses and state agencies. In 2001, one of her contract projects developed into the Missouri Department of Conservation's innovative Grow Native! program that she directed for over five years. She was successful in building the program through a unique website and suite of marketing materials, increased funding and staff, and exceptional government and organizational alliances that advanced the Program to its current level. She garnered much of the program funding through federal grants which she both wrote and administered. In 2003, the Grow Native! program was named one of the top ten state government programs by the Council of State Governments.
Judy regularly writes for industry publications and has designed and written content for a number of websites including Grow Native!, www.grownative.org, 10,000 Rain Gardens, www.rainkc.com, Forrest Keeling Nursery, www.forrestkeeling.com, and Sharp Brothers Seed, www.buffalobrandseed.com. She also writes and assists with Clarity Connect's marketing program, POP Signage. She speaks at professional conferences and public seminars, including keynotes at the 2002 North American Prairie Conference and 2008 Dayton MetroParks Beautiful Environments Symposium, and presentations at the 2006 Ball Perennial Plant Conference and 2007 Kansas Alliance for Wetlands and Streams Annual Conference. She is a member of Kansas City's 10,000 Rain Gardens Speakers Bureau, and serves on both the Missouri Botanical Garden's Plants of Merit Consulting Committee and Missouri Landscape and Nursery Association's Strategic Planning Committee.
Judy consults on native plant use, working landscapes and visual management as well as on marketing and communication strategies through her company, Bluestem Services, www.bluestemservices.com. One of its divisions, Bluestem Landscapes, is a State of Missouri WBE (Women's Business Enterprise). She and her husband, Arlen, have two sons. They live in Jefferson City, Missouri.