Educating the green industry’s next generation

“Their love for it is why I keep doing it.”

Teaching was never part of Dr. Drew Miller’s plan.

While working as a groundskeeper in collegiate and professional sports, Miller says his father asked him to meet with Miller's alma mater to revamp its agriculture program. After Miller dished out some advice for a few hours — and after a whirlwind of a meeting that turned into an interview — school administration decided to put him in charge.

Now Miller directs the Turfgrass Management Program at Brentsville District High School in Virginia, which enrolls more than 200 students annually. Recently, the program picked up a Toro partnership that equips the whole class with a fleet of Toro equipment.

Miller says students in the program are the ones out in the fields completing turfgrass work for the school’s athletic events. They’re trained on mower and equipment safety, plus the scientific elements like why grass is cut at a certain height. The students also learn how to stripe fields and they’re tasked with coming up with their own designs.

But perhaps more importantly for Miller, they’re taught how to operate the “real world” as much as they learn how to operate a mower. Miller says there’s unspoken life lessons that are applicable to any profession like dealing with other people’s personality differences and completing work on a deadline. Here, regardless of the circumstances, the athletic director still expects the fields to be ready by the time the teams take the field for their respective events. But later? Their bosses will expect them to get their jobs finished without excuses.

“I want to mimic the workplace,” Miller says. “It’s going so far beyond just turgrass management. It’s trying to create an opportunity for the students to learn and become better human beings.”

Miller says the students respond well to these lessons because, in some cases, it’s the first time they’re being trusted to act like adults.

The district's old agriculture program pulled in roughly 65 students, but now eight years later, there are 232 enrolled. There’s roughly 60-100 applicants a year for just the freshman level class alone. Those who are accepted transfer to Brentsville to take all their general education and an elective each year. Miller has even received applications from students who are from other states.

Miller attributes that exponential growth to word-of-mouth advertising and the unique setup of the class itself. 

“They found the love for it and they’re like we want everyone else to be a part of it,” Miller says. “It’s an opportunity to go outside for class. I never had the opportunity to do that when I was in high school.”