What you missed at NCLC

Note: Check Lawn & Landscape's website and magazine for more future coverage from the National Collegiate Landscape Competition.

The National Collegiate Landscape Competition is all wrapped up in Fort Collins, Colorado. We were on site to capture the sights and sounds of 56 schools, 770 students and hundreds of present and future industry professionals. 

WEDNESDAY

Opening Ceremony

Britt Wood, the CEO of the National Association of Landscape Professionals, joined NALP Chair Pam Dooley in ringing in this year’s competition. It’s one of the largest NCLC events ever with more than 100 more participants this week than in 2024.

Dooley told students that the industry they're entering isn't the same one from five years ago, let alone the one she entered when she founded Plants Creative Landscapes in 2005. But she reminded students that over the course of the event, competitors would practice the core skills that remain as essential as ever. She encouraged students to connect with other industry professionals who share a passion for environmental stewardship and hard work.

"I want all 56 schools to have a year of bragging rights with this trophy," Dooley said, "but remember, no matter who takes it home this year, the gift will be in those moments that stay with you and shape you over the next days, weeks and months after this competition ends."

5 more things we saw at the ceremony

Cheers! It's an NCLC tradition for participating schools to practice and perform creative team cheers during the "Roll Call" at the opening ceremony. This year, teams did anything from original chants to putting their own creative twists on Chappell Roan’s Hot to Go. BYU Provo, the defending champion, created a medley that blended Eminem’s Without Me with "Over the river and through the woods, to NCLC we go."

John Deere judged the team cheer competition, cutting the field down to its “Final Four” as a nod to NCAA’s March Madness. Ultimately, the judges selected the College of Dupage, Owens Community College, Wallace Community College and the hosts Colorado State University.

(Bitter)sweet victory: Owens Community College received a standing ovation after winning this year's cheer competition. That's because this is the school's last trip to NCLC — the school will no longer offer its landscaping program at the end of this school year. 

The school, which has competed at NCLC since 2004, came up with a cheer set to the tune of Bon Jovi's Livin' on a Prayer that ended with the line, "We'll miss you, we swear." Program director Chris Foley, who won NALP's Educator of the Year in 2012, is leading the team on its last ride at NCLC.

"Enrollment numbers have been going down for a few years, and then I was ready to retire," Foley says. "As soon as I told the college I was retiring last summer, they cut the program." 

We're here at #NALPNCLC covering the annual National Collegiate Landscape Competition. Owens Community College might be at its final competition, but it made a lasting memory today during the Roll Call cheer competition. pic.twitter.com/lgh9Ohh2VD

— Lawn & Landscape (@lawnlandscape) March 20, 2025

Something up their sleeves: Two of Foley's final students, Sally Herbert and Hailey Byers, created shirts that the team wore Wednesday with the traditional Owens logo on the front and a tombstone on the back. The words, "R.I.P. Landscape & Turfgrass Management," preceded program birth (Aug. 1990) and death (May 2025) dates. The shirts also included Owens mantras like "get your face in there," "don't think, don't think" and "are we having fun yet?"

Herbert and Byers will graduate in May and currently work with Metroparks Toledo in Ohio as horticulturalists.

© Jimmy Miller

In other shirt-related news, Ben Moss from Iowa State University won the NCLC's annual t-shirt design competition.

NCLC novices: Jenn Myers, the executive director of the NALP Foundation and Senior Director of Workforce Development, shouted out some of the event's first-time participations, including Tarleton State University and Fox Valley Technical College.  

Chuck Stangel leads the Fox Valley team, bringing students to compete for the first time. He won last year's Roll Call cheer competition as a solo contestant, leading the crowd to spell out FVTC. He attended NCLC without his students, but they're competing in this year's NCLC.

The trophy's up for grabs: Myers called BYU Provo to send a representative to the stage during the ceremony, where the student left behind the NCLC team trophy. The symbolic gesture is done to remind teams that the trophy is officially anybody’s game.

The winner will bring the trophy back to their campus after the closing ceremony Saturday.

Lessons from the classroom

We sat in for several workshops Wednesday to hear more about what the students competing this week were learning in their sessions. While we'll have more expansive coverage from those sessions later, here's some snippets from the things we heard.

The forests of the future: Dan Herms, the vice president and general manager of the Davey Institute, explained that climate change has already dramatically changed our landscapes nationwide. And, after diving into the numbers behind that change, Herms told students what he'd do if they're going into tree care or landscape design — plant trees that will do well today and in the climate they'll experience when the trees are mature.

“Think about what kind of tree to plant that will do well now, but also do well 100 years from now," Herms sayd. "(You're) planting for the future.”

Slow learners: Kevin Calcea, the commercial robotics product manager at Husqvarna, broke down how autonomous mowers work for the students in his session. But he also acknowledged that the American market has been much slower to adopt robotic mowing than Husqvarna's European market. He told students that one in three homes in Nordic countries have a robotic mower, and in central Europe, it's one in every four.

“In the U.S., robotic mowing is still in its infancy," he said.

© Jimmy Miller
Husqvarna's Kevin Calcea told students that robotic mowing is still making its way to American markets.

But Europe's not adopting all robotics — Americans are actually ahead in adopting robotic vacuums.

“(For American landscapers), there’s still that mow-and-go mentality that’s hard to break," Calcea said.

There are right answers: In her session, Plants Creative Landscapes' Pam Dooley offered a few questions students could use at the career fair Thursday. Among them were "What are your company’s values and how do they show up in decisions and daily operates?" and "What opportunities do you provide for career growth, training, and skill development?" 

Dooley encouraged students to consider the answers they wanted to hear from potential employers.

“It’s important to you to know yourself enough to know what matters to you," Dooley said.

THURSDAY

The Career Fair

NCLC kicked off Thursday with its career fair. The event featured more than 70 exhibitors, including landscapers and suppliers looking for their next employees or interns.

The other side of the table: It's not uncommon for previous NCLC competitors to come back as exhibitors with their new companies. That was the case for Alpine Gardens' Saffron Weddington, who earned second in Maintenance Cost Estimating for Colorado State University just last year. 

© Jimmy Miller 
Saffron Weddington and Kris Nylander represented Alpine Gardens at NCLC's Career Fair.

"I think when you're on the student side, it's a little nerve-wracking, and so I would just want to give advice to people to just try to relax as much as possible," Weddington said. "The people that work for the companies are humans, too, so they're not some big people you need to look up to or try to impress. Just be yourself."

Fun and games: Weddington and the Alpine Gardens booth encouraged visitors to throw some bags to win swag. The merch they left with depended on how many cornhole bags they sunk.

Elsewhere on the career fair floor, companies like Scapes let students race toy trucks through a landscape-inspired obstacle course. Meanwhile, Yellowstone Landscape tasked booth visitors with spinning a wheel to win hats and other branded swag.

Yes, there was plenty of networking, but NCLC attendees also had some fun at this year's Career Fair. Catch our full coverage of this week's event here: https://t.co/zqcw1UgVYM pic.twitter.com/Bt6VKl4Aqw

— Lawn & Landscape (@lawnlandscape) March 20, 2025

And the fun wasn't just for the students — Lindgren Landscape's employees all matched with the same blue, floral-patterned shirt, which certainly stood out in the crowd.

© Jimmy Miller

The Competition

Event briefings and competition events started Thursday, so competitors walked all over Colorado State's campus to study, plan and compete. 

A final focus: Contestants in the Hardscape Installation category gathered in the Behavioral Sciences building to receive the designs they'll need for competition Friday morning. Event judges also stood at the front of the room to answer questions like "can we visit the competition site tonight?" and "can you bring your own metal screenrails?" 

© Jimmy Miller

The event proctors reviewed important information like event start time, registration time and potential safety violations. They also told students that minor safety violations would start at a four-point deduction but wouldn't become an eight-point deduction unless teams didn't fix their violations after a few minutes. Major safety violations would result in an automatic eight-point deduction.

Students have attended briefings like this one all afternoon. While the Hardscape Installation category met, students could've also been at briefings for Arboriculture Techniques, Compact Track/Skid Steer Loader Operation, Landscape Plant Installation, Mini Track Loader Operation, Safety First, Small Engine Repair, and Truck and Trailer Operation. 

FRIDAY

Competition rolls on

March Madness: Right as Irrigation Troubleshooting and Turf & Weed ID tip off today, so too will the Colorado State Rams — the men's basketball team, that is.

© Jimmy Miller

CSU is one of several schools that has teams competing in both this week's March Madness NCAA Tournament and NCLC. CSU is the host school, but students will almost assuredly find time to peek at the men's basketball scores during their own competing. Defending champion Brigham Young University gathered Thursday to watch some of the Cougars win against VCU. Between studying for their events and filtering in and out for event briefings, BYU's NCLC team found time to root for their school in its own competition. One student certainly has had some skin in the game: He said he cheered on the Cougars at 13 games this season.

Scoring students: Keenan Baird is a former NCLC contestant himself, but now he's a plant healthcare manager at Milosi. He was also one of several judges in the Hardscape Installation event Friday morning.

Baird said he received an email with high-level instructions that detailed the things to look for in his specific category. Every judge this week has their own judging sheet with a rubric, and while the judges will discuss what they see, each judge has the autonomy to make their own assessments. 

"Most of them are going to be pretty close to each other, and you're going to need your best judgment and your industry experience to give a fair judgment," Baird said before the event.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by NALP (@landscape_assoc)

SATURDAY

Wrapping up

One last push: 40 minutes before their Sales Presentation event, Michael Krakovitz and Gabriel McGlinchey from the Williamson College of the Trades did what every student on CSU's campus did this week — last-minute prepwork.

Sure, Krakovitz and McGlinchey started preparing for this event in January. And yes, they had a 3.5-hour class every Friday this semester designed specifically for NCLC practice. But in their final moments before the event started, they collaborated one last time before Krakovitz stood in front of judges trying to secure a contract.

Krakovitz and other contestants had just 10 minutes to convince judges to sign a hypothetical check on their landscape design. McGlinchey created the design and Krakovitz drew up some contracts. But once the competition started, only one student could present. 

© Jimmy Miller
Gabriel McGlinchey (left) and Michael Krakovitz moments before Sales Presentation on Thursday.

"I know more about the design and he knows more about the contracts," McGlinchey said. "I just labelled a couple things for him so he doesn't forget when he's up on stage to make it easier while he's on stage.

They certainly weren't alone in last-minute preparations. McGlinchey said the Williamson team met up several times throughout the week to quiz each other with flash cards and Quizlets. That was a common sight across campus leading up to each of the 30 competitive categories.

"It's a lot of work," Krakovitz said, "but if you love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life."

Champs once again: For the second consecutive year, BYU Provo has won the National Collegiate Landscape Competition.

The team won this year's NCLC and scored nearly 16 more points than the year prior. Cuyahoga Community College and Colorado State University rounded out the top three. These three programs all ranked in the top three in 2024, too.

For the defending champs, it was truly a team effort this year: Larkin Parsons-Keir, Joshua Merkley and Preston Madsen all scored 100 points and were the team's leading scorers. BYU Provo had 49 students who scored points this year at NCLC. 

All of the final team scores are live on the NALP website.

Super students: Cincinnati State Tech & Community College's Alexsis Perrmann is this year's top scoring student with 431.80 points. Christine Kermond (Tri-C) and Nate Hawks (Michigan State) rounded out the top three.

Hailey Byers was fifth overall for Owens Community College, which is in its final year competing. All of the final student scores are live on the NALP website.

An eye to the future: It's already time to start thinking about NCLC in 2026. NALP is celebrating the 50th anniversary of NCLC next year at Michigan State, which NALP's Jenn Myers said is the site of the nation's oldest collegiate horticulture program. It's also where students were supposed to compete in 2020 before COVID-19 canceled the in-person event just five days before it had been scheduled.

"50 is a pretty big milestone — 50th birthday, 50th anniversary, so being able to celebrate the 50th year of NCLC almost doesn't seem real" Myers said. "It just felt very fitting that things were going to line up to head back there for this event. I've talked to so many students now in the industry and faculty who say, 'I'm still so bummed we didn't get to go to Michigan State.'"

NCLC next year will be held March 18-21 in East Lansing, Michigan. Myers also confirmed that NCLC will be in Cleveland at Cuyahoga Community College from March 17-20, 2027.

Check back with Lawn & Landscape for more coverage from this week's NCLC event as it unfolds.