Landscape Management, May 2014

BRUCE WARD Co owner Florida Evergreen Landscape Lawn Care Fort Myers Fla Former pharmaceutical sales exec at Cephalon WEB EXTRA 17 MAY 2014 LANDSCAPEMANAGEMENT NET PHOTO FLORIDA EVERGREEN LANDSCAPE LAWN CARE continued on page 20 TION Of the 26 years I worked in the pharmaceutical industry I spent 22 of them in airplanes Ward says As much as I loved the people I was working with and the good work we were doing in oncology I was ready to be sleeping in my own bed On top of that longing for the comfort of home Ward had the itch to be his own boss In 2010 he and a Florida golf buddy in a similar situation teamed up buy a small business they could run together Within three months Ward and his business partner Dan Buettin were owners of Florida Evergreen Landscape Lawn Care in Fort Myers Fla In the four years since Ward joined the Green Industry the company has grown 50 percent It has an anticipated 2014 revenue of 33 million That growth takes into account a considerable shift in client base from government contracts to more private work including a push into landscape installations Its interesting because its a very different business from where I was yet the fundamentals and how you behave and go about creating a vision for the future those things dont change Ward says Hes not alone in this realization Other professionals whove pursued a new direction in the landscape industry also discovered the skills they sharpened elsewhere are universal and theyve seen their companies benefit as a result Among the skills people in their second careers bring are wisdom introspection and decision making abilities experts in second act careers say They usually come with a broader palette of skills and many times deeper expertise says Dorothy Tannahill Moran a speaker second career coach and author of Career Mapping for Climbing Managers While the second career may not use all of those skills they are an easier fit into a wide array of possible jobs In industries where second act professionals arent experts they often have the self awareness and knack for networking to fill that gap with someone better suited for the job rather than try to do everything themselves says Nancy Collamer author of Second Act Careers Those people have a good sense of their strengths assets and abilities she says The result of businesses being run by owners in their second careers is often a calmer more structured environment experts add Fewer things upset or disturb this group as theyre better equipped to put things into perspective than many others Tannahill Moran says MANAGEMENT AND TRAINING SKILLS Patrick Hawkins was unsure how things would turn out when he left a 20 year career at DHL Express to join his wifes familys lawn care company Lawn Cure of Southern Indiana based in Sellersburg Ind I was dealing with thousands of people and budgets in excess of hundreds of million of dollars he says I didnt know what to expect at first but within a few months I realized every skill set I learned at DHL and they put a lot of time and money into their managers was all transferrable For Hawkins that meant focusing on people first At DHL I managed people every day Here Im managing people every day says the president and general manager of Lawn Cure which was founded 36 years ago by his father in law Larry Messina When Messina wanted to step away from the business in 2009 he retained a 2 percent stake and gave each of his daughters 49 percent Hawkins wife Michelle and her sister Missy Fromme run the administrative side of the business and he came on board to handle operations Read about a service quality audit program Hawkins picked up from his former career in the Web Extras section of Landscape Management net