Advice on cutting the grass

Chuck Bowen

A few weeks ago, I was in rural Maryland at the headquarters of Chapel Valley Landscape. As part of a virtual tour project we’re doing with PLANET, a videographer and I were conducting interviews with Landon and James Reeve, the founder and CEO of Chapel Valley, respectively.

It’s a lot of fun to talk with landscapers at their shop, because they’re in their element and can show off all the cool equipment and projects and people they have. You get to meet with designers and crew members and the guy who runs the small engine repair and see how they fabricate their custom trailers.

Owners also tend to talk more openly and directly on their home turf than when they’re at a trade show or conference. I asked James, who took over as CEO from his dad in 2003, about changes Chapel Valley has made in the past few years. Like many, he has moved the company away from the design/build work that it thrived on for years to a more maintenance-based operation.

Standing on a graveled hillside near a holding yard that’s nowhere near as big as it used to be, James explained the move from construction to maintenance as one dictated by his customers. “You can’t not cut the grass, but you can not plant the tree,” he told me. “So we’re cutting the grass.”

This month’s issue features our Top 100 list, our annual digest of the biggest companies in the landscape and lawn care industry based on top-line revenue. We’ve interviewed the owners of some of the companies on the list to find out what they’ve learned, and also asked other readers about the best advice they’ve ever received, and we got some great responses. Those entries flow through this month’s cover story.

With $29 million of revenue in 2010, Chapel Valley came in at number 39 on this year’s list. Reeve predicts his company will grow 7 percent in 2011. Your numbers might not be that big – or they might be bigger. Regardless of your revenue or growth – big or small, fast or slow – you’ll hopefully learn something from the pages that follow.

– Chuck Bowen