TOP 100: City Girl (Christy Webber Landscapes)

Christy Webber is a laborer at heart. She prefers to be out in the field than behind a desk, and she’d rather be elbow-deep in dirt than swamped under paperwork. “I’m very hands-on and I’m always here, to the dismay of some of the people that work for me,” she says with a chuckle.
 
But after building a landscape business from the ground up, Webber feels it’s the duty of an organization’s leader to take an active role in its success. Her Chicago-based firm, Christy Webber Landscapes, posted 2007 revenue of $18.2 million, a 45-percent increase from 2006.  A large design/build contract with the city of Chicago accounted for much of this spike. Heading into 2008, Webber predicts a more conservative growth rate of about 10 percent.

CHRISTY WEBBER LANDSCAPES

Chicago, Ill. President: Christy Webber 2007 Revenue: $18,200,000 Founded: 1990 Service breakdown: 40% maintenance 50% design/build/installation 10% snow Client breakdown: 75% commercial/municipal 15% residential 10% snow

Despite a recent marketing effort to increase her commercial and residential client base, Webber attributes much of the company’s annual revenue to the maintenance and design/build work that it does for the city of Chicago.
 

Webber says she’s fortunate there’s not a lot of competition in the Chicago market fighting it out for these city maintenance contracts, with maybe four or five other firms bidding on this business. There’s a popular stigma among Chicago landscape professionals that this is less-than-desirable work, she says. In fact, Webber’s industry colleagues warned her about delving too deep into city contracts, claiming the work could potentially ruin her business. “They gave me a lot of grief,” she says. “They told me not to get too heavy into municipal work. They said I would only get burned from doing those types of contracts. Now I’m working and those suburban guys are not.”
 
Two years ago, Christy Webber Landscapes moved into its new corporate headquarters located at the Rancho Verde eco-industrial park, located in a blighted former industrial complex in Chicago’s East Garfield Park neighborhood.  The move was the culmination of the firm’s hard work, determination and nearly a decade of negotiations with the city. To make this dream a reality, Christy Webber Landscapes formed a development company, Chicago GreenWorks, to undertake development of the 12.5 acre parcel into nine lots that will house as many as six separate businesses.   

This includes Christy Webber’s headquarters, which features a number of green design elements, such as a green roof, geothermal heating and cooling and active and passive solar systems. Last fall, the building earned the U.S. Green Building Council’s highest LEED rating. Webber says it was important that her company remain in Chicago and be a fixture in the area that many of her workers call home. “I felt like I was a fixture of this neighborhood and I wanted to give something back,” she says. “I hope that the people who live around this company look at what we’re doing and say to themselves, ‘Hey, if Christy can do it then maybe I can, too.’”