Dr. Mitch Schneider’s interest in plants started young when one of his first memories was planting a vegetable garden at two years old with his grandfather in his hometown of Cleveland Ohio. Which quickly evolved into taking care of his grandfather’s African Violet collection that was inherited from Mitch’s great-grandmother. In his teenage years Mitch evolved to growing orchids after seeing the orchid mania display at the Cleveland Botanical Gardens. Mitch stayed in Ohio receiving a bachelor’s degree in physics from Wright State University in 2018 and working with the Air Force Institute of Technology. Later moving on to Michigan State University and the Department of Energy accelerator traineeship receiving a PhD in electrical engineering and a second PhD in physics in 2022. During the course of his training Mitch worked at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois as well as Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. In 2022 Mitch relocated to the SF Bay Area to work on electron source development at Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC). 
While at Los Alamos Mitch met Dr. Ron Midgett, who has been breeding orchids for over 55 years.  Mitch learned the art of breeding orchids from Ron. When Ron started considering retirement, Mitch became a co-owner of New Earth Orchids, and relocated operations from Santa Fe, New Mexico to Half Moon Bay, CA.

Mitch is active in the American Orchid Society Pacific Central Judging Center, has been serving on the SFOS show committee, and is now the Vice President. Mitch strives to encourage younger orchid growers to become more involved and to help partner them with experienced members to share their love of orchids, and to learn from each other.