AHPA 2012 AWARD Winners Announced

The AHPA Herbal Hero Award recognizes individuals who make outstanding contributions to AHPA committees or initiatives. Coven has served on the AHPA board of trustees for the past 12 years, during which he has spent 11 of those on the executive committee. According to AHPA, he has endeavored to ensure a stable financial position for the organization, allowing it to expand staffing and services to its members, according to AHPA. He has chaired the Finance and Governance Committee and served as development chair for the AHPA Foundation for Education and Research on Botanicals. Coven is in his 30th year as head of Vitality Works, which began in 1982 as a wellness center and compounding supplement pharmacy in Albuquerque and is now a privately held nutraceutical, dietary supplement, and homeopathic manufacturing company. As an early clinician (he was a student of Michael Moore), educator, and pioneer in the field of wellness and herbal medicine, Coven began developing and manufacturing dietary supplement products for health professionals and national and international nutraceutical companies in the 1990s. After years in clinical practice, Coven has since developed and manufactured thousands of formulas for the natural products industry. The Vitality Works facility is GMP certified, FDA registered, kosher and organic certified.

The AHPA Herbal Industry Leader Award recognizes companies that set an example of outstanding business practices or organizations that work to move the industry forward above and beyond normal business practices.  AHPA noted over the last 41 years, Tom's of Maine has grown into a natural personal care leader and a thriving business with an array of natural productsfrom toothpaste and mouthwash to deodorant and bar soapin stores across the nation. Innovative use of botanicals and decades of botanicals research is a hallmark of Tom's research and development process; it has been central to the company's product development process and critical to bringing new Tom's of Maine products to the marketplace. Since its inception, Tom's of Maine has donated 10 percent of its profits back to the community and gives each employee 12 paid days off per year to volunteer. Tom's of Maine is a company that believes it is possible to be successful while caring for people and the planet.

The AHPA Herbal Insight Award recognizes individuals or non-commercial organizations that have a significant impact on furthering knowledge and understanding of botanicals and their uses. Upton is trained in traditional Ayurvedic, Chinese, and Western herbal traditions, as well as both Native American and Caribbean ethnobotanical traditions. He is a professional member of the American Herbalists Guild and of AHPA's Standards committee, and he sits on the advisory committees for the American Botanical Council,  AOAC International, and  NSF International. Along with being an author and lecturer, he was co-founder and past president of the American Herbalists Guild and is herbalist and director of the California-based herbal company Planetary Herbals.

AHPA said it is giving its Visionary Award to Moore for his approach to botanical medicines, the development of a contemporary approach to herbal practice, and his broad impact on herbalists and the practice of modern U.S. herbalism during the revival of American Herbalism in the second half of the 20th century. Moore studied Southwestern plants in their natural environment and taught how to harvest, process, and make highly efficacious herbal products from them. His encyclopedic knowledge of plants, developed after nearly 40 years spent as a scholar, herb trader and picker, merchant, ethnobotanist, clinician, teacher, and writer, was unmatched. This personal and intimate knowledge of herbs came together in four books he authored, Medicinal Plants of the Mountain West (1979), Medicinal Plants of the Desert and Canyon West (1989), Los Remedios: Traditional Herbal Remedies of the Southwest (1990), and Medicinal Plants of the Pacific West (1993).  AHPA said Moore's greatest contribution to herbal medicine, though, comes from his development of a common-sense generalist's approach to herbal practice and the engaging personal style in which he transmitted that herbal and physiology-based knowledge. He operated a residency-based herbalist's trade school for more than 25 years, graduating about 600 students, many of whom have gone on to become teachers, practitioners, and members of the herbal industry. Moore, who died in 2009, was preeminently influential in rekindling and furthering the herbal medicine movement in the United States and has been rightfully recognized as the "godfather" of modern American herbalism.