The standard bearers

Andrew Kerin and Roger Zino have the unprecented challenge of leading the creation of the largest landscape company in the history of the industry.

It wasn’t a difficult decision to put their story on the cover – the biggest news in the landscape industry in the last two years has been the purchase of Brickman and ValleyCrest by private equity company KKR, and the subsequent efforts to combine them.

The Brickman and Sperber families were arguably the founding families of the industry. What they started in the ’30s and ’40s grew into the modern landscape industry that we all know and love today.

And when I was talking with Andrew Kerin and Roger Zino at the Brickman-cum-BrightView headquarters in a swanky office park in suburban Maryland, I realized something. Despite the fact that these guys don’t look like your typical landscapers, they are now the standard bearers for the landscape industry.

How they decide to operate – pricing, safety, design style, employee training, recruitment, wages, etc. – will trickle down through other commercial maintenance firms, property managers and customers. Because, like it or not, like ValleyCrest and Brickman before, BrightView is the landscape industry to many people. They have the most trucks, the most employees, the most high-profile jobs.

What BrightView and other Top 100 companies do defines what the green industry looks like to the outside world.

And that’s why the Top 100 matters to every landscaper out there – from the large, regional companies that actually go toe-to-toe with the BrightViews and the TruGreens of the world, to the independent entrepreneurs running mom-and-pop operations who make up the bulk of the industry.

This issue is not meant to be a bragging contest about who has the biggest company. While that’s interesting, it’s not particularly useful. It’s about helping you understand who these guys are and how they’re going to shape the next 50 or 100 years of the industry.

I asked Zino and Kerin about combining two of the industry’s most storied and influential companies into one, and how they approached that idea. Zino told me this: “The way that you honor pioneers who created decades of opportunity is to be a pioneer and create the next five and six and 10 decades of opportunity. So that’s what BrightView is about. We honor the Brickmans and the Sperbers and their pioneering by being pioneers – taking this industry to the next level and providing opportunities for thousands of people like both those families did.”

The mega-merger of these two companies makes for splashy headlines, but the rub lies in how Kerin and Zino lead the industry, like their forebears did. So far, they seem up for the challenge.

– Chuck Bowen
cbowen@gie.net