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Story Of A Landscape: Logistics Challenges For University Of Texas Green Roof

It’s a rare job where logistics doesn’t play some part in the mix. When you’re working seven stories in the air in a crowded downtown construction site, however, logistics are a big part of the story — and on this project, the greatest challenge.

When it comes to the new Dell Medical School facilities at the University of Texas, just about everything is big and out of the ordinary.

As the first medical school to be built from the ground up in the last 50 years, it’s perhaps not surprising the design includes a 17,000-square-foot succulent and wildflower garden on top of a parking garage which is visible from the adjacent Health Transformation Building and hospital rooms at the nearby Dell Seton Medical Center.

Photo: Brightview

Getting that garden built and planted was no easy feat. It was done in three-and-a-half weeks with a dozen men as a testament to the organizational abilities of BrightView Landscape Development’s area superintendent, Kayla Jahrman. John Faske, the assistant manager of BrightView’s Austin branch, says Jahrman was the glue that kept the project together.

BrightView Landscape Development was awarded the contract based on its bid.

“It was a hard-bid situation,” Faske says. “We were awarded the job based on the best value to the general contractor, Hensel Phelps.”

However, the company is developing a reputation for installing green roofs, and Faske adds that designers and developers are seeing more value to them, whether it’s helping with LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) or SITES (Sustainable Sites Initiative) rating systems, reducing roof temperatures or controlling runoff.

Photo: Brightview

Although this is the largest green roof Faske has done, BrightView Landscape Development has completed a green roof project at another University of Texas campus and has several more in progress. The Dell Medical School job was recognized by the Texas Nursery and Landscape Association with a Texas Excellence in Landscaping gold award.

In many ways the project was straightforward. Faske explains that BrightView received the site once the decking was done and the waterproofing applied. The first thing the company did was put down a hydro-tech retention mat.

“It has a lightweight aggregate in it which is contained in plastic cups that help retain water,” he says. “We then put filter fabric over the mat and installed custom-molded concrete curbing on a mortar bed to act as a retainer between the planting areas on the inside and the gravel maintenance strip on the outside.”

Photo: Brightview

Getting the 450-pound curbs to the jobsite and then on the roof wasn’t a simple job. The curbs were craned up, as well as a very small tractor BrightView arranged to have. Faske says because of weight limits on the roof it was one of the smallest mini-tractors available.

“We actually fabricated a lifting apparatus,” Faske says. “It’s designed to lift boulders, but we custom fabricated some fingers on the end of it so we could lift the concrete curbs. That allowed us to use the tractor to pick them up safely by machine rather than using labor.”

Simply having access to the crane was its own challenge.

Photo: Brightview

“The crane was there for a separate building project, but we were able to partner up with Hensel Phelps,” Faske says. “We had to use the crane on off times, so we worked later hours and we worked weekends when the crane was available. We also had to coordinate the use of the crane with the other trades.”

The unfinished nature of the Health Transformation Building also required the BrightView crew to leave space nearest that building undone early in the process.

“We won’t work below a building that’s going up because of the fall hazards,” he says. “The main wall we were working against was a solid glass wall, so we left about 20 feet undone against the building while they were putting up the glass.”

At least as challenging as getting the curbing onto the roof was delivering the soil — all 28 truckloads of it. The soil is a special mix called out by the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, who was a key partner in the project.

“There was an exact ingredient mix that we had to produce for them,” Faske says. “We didn’t have any say in that; it was pre-determined by the wildflower center and approved by the University of Texas.”

Photo: Brightview

Coordinating its delivery with the availability of the crane meant the BrightView team had to be efficient. Once a truck would arrive on-site (staging was done in a closed traffic lane next to the building), the soil which was shipped in Super Sacks — one cubic yard per sack — was hoisted to the roof, two at a time by the crane.

“We scheduled deliveries so they’d come in every hour over a period of days,” Faske says. “Our guys would take a knife, cut the bottom of the bag and the soil would dump out in one area. We had the mini-tractor to act like a dozer and do the grading.”

Photo: Brightview

While he adds that it was fun to see the work as it happened, coordinating with the other trades meant the crew would have to do as much as possible in a small window of time to stockpile materials in certain areas and then go back later to finish.

The soil mix was spread to a full foot to allow for greater insulation from heat and retention of rain water. Once the soil was in, the company installed a drip irrigation system with special soil sensors.

“The sensors tie to the University of Texas’ irrigation system,” Faske says. “They monitor the water and the moisture retention in the soil for research they’re doing.”

Photo: Brightview

The soil also provided Faske’s biggest learning experience for the project. Getting the soil to the roof may have been one challenge, but keeping it there was another — and unanticipated.

“When we got the soil up there, not all the windows were in the building,” he says. “When the wind would blow, it would take the smaller particles of soil and blow them into the building. We had to come up with a way to hold the soil down, so we came up with a jute mesh netting we put down. It’s normally used for erosion control, and when the plants came in we just pulled it part, made holes and planted through it.”

The plants included 6,500 prickly-pear, red yucca and manfreda, over-sewn with a mix of Texas bluebonnets and plains coreopsis.

Photo: Brightview

“We had them custom grown for the job,” Faske says. “I believe we put the order in four months in advance and it worked out well that when the job was ready the plants were mature and ready to go in the ground.”

Although maintenance of the project has been taken over by the University of Texas, BrightView still has a finger in the pie with monthly inspections of the site.

Of course, Faske’s very proud of the job, particularly the way everything came together, and everyone worked together on a difficult site. However, he says that’s due to the work Jahrman put in on the project, including going to weekly coordination meetings and making sure that deliveries of materials were scheduled in around the other subs and the general contractor.

“She was the mastermind,” Faske says. “She did all the coordinating to get everybody out of our way, so we could do our work. She really made it happen.”

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Neonics Remain Under Fire In Canada, Europe

Popular chemical products that U.S. farmers and turf care professionals depend upon to combat a range of plant pests remain under fire in much of Canada. We’re referring to neonicotinoids (neonics). Lawmakers in provinces and cities across our northern neighbor have these insecticides directly in their regulatory crosshairs.

At the risk of sharing what many of you may already know, here’s a brief backgrounder on neonics. Then, we’ll share what’s happening in Canada.

Neonics entered the market in the 1990s with the introduction of Bayer’s imidocloprid (Merit). Imidocloprid and other related molecules, such as clothianiden (Arena), thimetoxam (Meridian) and several other neonics act similarly on the nervous systems of plant pests, much like nicotine, hence the name. Neonics were developed in large part because they demonstrated reduced toxicity compared to previously used organophosphate and carbamate insecticides. But as the use of neonics surged worldwide this past generation, criticism aimed at them intensified fueled primarily by research suggesting they harm pollinators, including butterflies and honeybees.

In April 2013, this concern prompted a majority of member states of the European Union to vote in favor of implementing a ban on the use of imidacloprid, clothianidin and thiamethoxam on crops attractive to bees. The vote also affects the use of the pesticides by green industry professionals and private gardeners. In November 2017, the European Food Safety Agency began evaluating new data for the review of the restrictions for these three neonics.

The debate over the use of neonics rages in Canada, pitting well-funded “environmental” organizations against multinational chemical manufacturers, agricultural organizations and landscape/lawn/tree services providers – each group touting science to support their particular positions.

Consequently, a large range of stakeholders — farmers, fruit growers, green industry professionals and even beekeepers among others – now find themselves mired in a politicized issue that’s seemingly driven as much by emotion as by reason.

And the controversy shows few signs of lessening.

In November 2016, Health Canada proposed a ban on imidacloprid claiming that it is seeping into waterways at levels harmful to aquatic insects and the ecosystem. (Bees were not included in this particular risk assessment draft because that’s being done separately.) Health Canada is still reviewing the comments it received on the proposal to ban this popular neonic. It is expected to issue a final determination sometime in the spring of 2018.

Not content to wait for that report, Ontario, the country’s most populous province, and two major Canadian cities have taken action on their own.

Ontario is considering an 80 percent reduction in acreage planted in neonic-treated corn and soybean seed. The province already banned the use of almost all commonly-used chemical herbicides and pest controls on residential and commercial properties in 2009.

Then in 2015, the city of Montreal banned the use of all neonics, not just on residential and commercial properties, but also for golf courses and properties used for agriculture purposes. This past summer, the city of Vancouver in British Columbia outlawed using neonics (focusing on imidacloprid in particular) for treating home lawns, even those properties infested by chafer white grubs. In defending their decisions, lawmakers in both cities cited concern over the negative effects of these products on bees and other pollinators.

While the use of these popular pest controls has not emerged as a major issue within the United States, user groups here continue to monitor what’s going on elsewhere – especially within Canada, situated on our country’s northern doorstep and its second-largest trading partner.

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2017 Insurance, Labor And Pricing Survey

Analyzing costs should contribute to everything you do beginning with the most basic function: pricing jobs and setting contracts. To do this well and stay profitable, you need to understand the best equipment for each site, whether to rent, lease or buy that equipment, and what manpower you might need to complete the task. Each has hard costs and opportunity costs. Add to that various layers of insurances, software, office support and de-icing materials, and the costs stack up quickly. Your job is to control these costs so you still have a margin at the end of your snowy day.

PLOW magazine’s inaugural Insurance, Labor & Pricing Survey is intended to identify how the snow and ice management companies address these costs in their businesses and off er ideas on how to maximize profits. It also identifies pain points in your business so we can find solutions by tackling additional stories, like how to analyze whether to rent, lease or buy equipment for a season or a particular site. And as always, PlowSite.com gives you a vehicle to discuss challenges and solutions with other contractors in real time.

The majority of respondents, 70 percent, identify as landscape companies that also do snow management in the winter months, and 17 percent identify as primarily snow management companies (see methodology and demographics). Most respondents, 87 percent, have commercial accounts, and 74 percent have residential accounts. About 10 percent do some government work, whether city, state or federal.

As almost a direct corollary to how companies identify, 69 percent of primarily landscape companies make less than 25 percent of their annual revenue on snow and ice management services, and almost all make less than 50 percent of annual revenues on snow. Conversely, about 34 percent of respondents that identified as primarily snow companies make more than 50 percent of annual revenues on snow; 60 percent say annual revenues are less than 25 percent, and the remaining third say snow revenues are 26 percent to 50 percent of their business (CHART 1).

How companies identify as either a landscape or snow company is interesting. Although many on both sides have a similar revenue breakout, it is likely the complexity of the snow business, the time spent on cost control and staffing, and capital expenditures that push companies to say they are primarily snow guys. In the realm of insurance, there are added complexities. No one, to my knowledge, has ever been sued for a public safety concern over an unmowed lawn or because a few grass clippings were left on a sidewalk.

One concern is that smaller contractors sometimes forgo the necessary insurances, thereby making their cost of services less expensive, and these smaller contractors are less likely to follow best practices as well. Reassuringly, just 2 percent of respondents say they do not carry any comprehensive general liability insurance (CHART 2). While many would say that’s 2 percent too much, there are not as many single-owner/operators tearing through town without insurance as popularly believed. About one-third of respondents have less than $1 million in CGL, and 64 percent of companies have more than $1 million.

Fewer companies carry an umbrella policy, but not by many. Just 8 percent of contractors don’t carry one, and just 11 percent have $500,000 or less (CHART 3). This is a positive thing for the industry because it allows a business to continue to operate in the case of an unforeseen accident. With an umbrella policy, contractors don’t need to worry about limitations with their CGL, and you won’t need to worry about losing your business if you strike a little bad luck.

Insurance for your equipment is less common, especially for pickup truck guys because you’re already covered with your other insurances. Almost a quarter of respondents don’t carry inland marine insurance; 62 percent have $1 million or less (CHART 4).

While the importance of insurance has reached all types of contractors, industry operating standards have some room to improve: 55 percent of respondents use either SIMA or ASCA best practices all of the time or most of the time, while 45 percent use them some of the time or not at all (CHART 5).

Labor and operations

There are a lot of one-man shows in this business, but respondents average 7.6 employees during the winter months. More than one-third of respondents (34 percent) have two or fewer workers, and 62 percent have five or fewer workers. Just 18 percent of respondents say they are solo owner/operators, and 9 percent of respondents have more than 20 employees.

The average hourly pay for sidewalk workers is $16.10, although the range varies widely. There are a lot of companies that pay $10, likely sending them out with a crew of actual shovels and maybe some equipment that a homeowner might own. On the other end of the spectrum, some companies report paying $30 per hour for sidewalk crew members, who likely are operating specialty equipment to reduce the need for additional sidewalk employees. Fully 75 percent of respondents pay shovelers between $11 and $20 per hour.

Of the respondents that have sidewalk crews, 28 percent use them as independent contractors, and 72 percent hire them as payroll employees. Obviously having them as formal employees is more expensive with benefits and worker’s compensation, and the independent contractor route is more flexible and unstable. You might not have payroll obligations when it doesn’t snow, but those workers might not be available when you need them (CHART 6).

As a direct corollary to employee designations, 70 percent of respondents pay into worker’s compensation insurance, and 30 percent do not.

When it comes to how to schedule, deploy and track employees, fewer than a quarter of companies are using software for crew management, fleet management, routing, tracking and documenting work (CHART 7). That seems woefully difficult for any operation with more than a few guys servicing a handful of accounts. I’d expect this number to rise as this software becomes more ubiquitous for larger companies. Just 30 percent of respondents use a pay service for weather data.

Of course, fancy software can cut into your bottom line if you don’t use it properly or often enough to generate cost savings through the efficiencies that are realized by deploying it. Labor, software, equipment and other factors all contribute to the pricing model that you give clients.

The most popular pricing model is a per-event contract model, followed closely by per-push calls (CHART 8). Hourly contracts are still widespread, as are seasonal. Interestingly, the model that probably makes the most sense for seasonal contracts is the least utilized: Seasonal contracts with a cap and floor are used just 14 percent of the time. That model requires a bit more of a relationship and dialogue with clients, but contractors can stabilize themselves from snow-event variances from year to year.

PLOW Magazine conducted its Insurance and Pricing Survey in December 2017. The survey was emailed to our subscriber list and kept open for two weeks. It’s 267 respondents give it a ±5.97 percent margin of error with 95 percent confidence. The companies that responded were 92 percent professional landscape and snow contractors or subcontractors; 7 percent are government entities, and 1 percent are national staffing and service companies. Individual respondents are 96 percent owners, managers and supervisors, and most of the “other” respondents indicated “all of the above.” Respondents from 35 states participated in the survey, and 84 percent of respondents reported revenues of less than $200,000 for snow management services.

Visit PlowSite.com for more forums on equipment, business management and technical information. Join the conversation in the largest community of snow and ice business professionals.

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6 Spring Cleanup Services To Market To Your Clients

There may be snow on the ground where you live, but now’s the time to start thinking about spring services. It takes time to market to your clients and get your crew trained, so decide now what services your company will offer so you can hit ground running when the weather breaks.

1. Clear leaves, branches, other debris.

Spring is the time to do an overall refresh of the yard. Once the snow melts, leftover leaves, sticks and pinecones become more obvious. Outdoor Design Group recommends raking the yard and flower beds well at least once to help manage any debris from the winter.

Read more: Seizing Opportunities After Your ‘100 Days of Hell’

2. Aeration.

Aerating in the spring gives the grass a chance to recuperate as it goes into its primary growing season. Be sure to evaluate each lawn’s needs before aerating and avoid the service during extended drought.

Read more: The Strong Case for Core Aeration

3. Edging.

Landscape edging frames plantings and creates clean, crisp lines between beds and other areas. Now is the time to make sure the edges of the lawn are well defined and consider any re-edging that might be necessary around flower beds, according to The Grounds Guys. Be sure to address any metal edging that may have heaved over the winter, suggests the Outdoor Design Group. If you notice during a maintenance visit that a client doesn’t have any bed edging in their landscape, this is a good opportunity to offer the service and show the value edging has to bringing more distinct, visual interest to a property.

Read more: 4 Things You Need to Know About Landscape Edging

4. New plants.

Bring color to your client’s landscape immediately with newly planted flowers and annuals. Homeowners and property managers want their properties to look fresh for the season, and there’s nothing like color in the right places to make their landscapes stand out, says Rick Cuddihe, president of Lafayette Consulting.

Read more: 10 Summer Perennials for Landscapers

5. Irrigation check.

Once May arrives, start up the irrigation systems. Do a full checkup on sprinkler heads, nozzles and any drip irrigation. Look for clogs, leaks and proper adjustments or alignments that might be necessary. According to Outdoor Design Group in Colorado, lawns do not generally need supplemental water until May. Check soil moisture to be sure.

Read more: Recognizing, Preventing & Fixing: A Damaged Irrigation System

6. Nontraditional services.

Clogged gutters are a nightmare for property owners. If you offer this service, make sure your insurance covers your employees on ladders, says Rick Cuddihe. Let clients know about your gutter services now so when they do need the service, you’ll be first in their mind when they consider it in the future. Window washing may be another opportunity to consider offering to clients this spring. Keith Kalfas has found a way to be profitable and pay attention to the details in order to win over customers.

Read more: How Your Company Can Profit Year-Round

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3 Landscapers Share Strategies For Pricing Mowing Jobs

If you’re like a lot of landscape businesses, pricing your mowing jobs may be a sore spot. There are quite a few factors that go into pricing — and most of them are going up. In fact, 66 percent of landscape professionals answering a recent Turf survey say they are raising mowing/maintenance prices this year. Of those raising prices, the average increase is 5.8 percent.

From rising labor wages to higher equipment costs, all of the signs seem to be pointing toward raising mowing prices, but it’s not always easy to do. “The problem with pricing jobs is that everyone is afraid,” says Dan Gordon, certified public accountant and managing member of TurfBooks. “Mostly, they’re afraid of losing business. So, even companies that are raising their prices often aren’t always doing it in a meaningful way. They’re really squeezing their profits because they’re afraid of raising prices too high.”

Of all of the factors that come into play with the decision to raise prices, Gordon says that labor is by far the most significant.

“Workers are looking for more money and the only way that you can afford that is to raise your prices,” Gordon says. “You have to bite the bullet and do it. When you sell your mowing jobs like a commodity and go a dollar cheaper than the ‘other guy,’ you’re eventually going to lose that job when someone comes along who is a dollar cheaper than you. But if you sell your mowing jobs like a premium service, where you truly take care of the customer — not only doing their mowing but performing other services as well — then you are creating value so that your customers, hopefully, won’t leave you over saving a few bucks.”

We reached out to three different landscape business owners in three tiers to determine how they’re pricing jobs. Interestingly, at all ends of the revenue spectrum, the contractors we spoke to did raise prices this year.

Small business: Fallen Leaf Lawn & Yard Care

Approximate revenue: $25,000

Bill Prout, owner of Fallen Leaf Lawn & Yard Care in East Haven, Connecticut, says that he raised prices this year even though he’s often competing with the mow-and-go guys that make it hard to raise prices in his marketplace. As a small operation, Prout says he does his best to keep equipment on the newer side so he creates some value against the lowballers out there.

In 2017, he bought a brand-new mower, and he plans to invest in additional equipment this year. Those buys always make it necessary for him to raise prices in order to remain profitable, and he’ll likely raise prices again this year.

“I have a base price that I will not go below,” Prout says.

“I see a lot of fly-by-night companies out there doing it. They drop prices just to get jobs. But that’s simply not sustainable, and you can’t give into the pressure to follow suit. It only hurts everyone when people do that. Those businesses rarely stick around long.”

Prout says he aims to build value with the other services that he offers such as seasonal cleanups, small install jobs, mulching and trimming.

“Convincing the customer that you have more to offer them than just mowing is important when you’re competing against rock-bottom mowing prices,” Prout says.

Medium business: Kinnucan Tree Experts & Landscape Co.

Approximate revenue: $5.5 million total for company

Bob Kinnucan, president of Kinnucan Tree Experts & Landscape Co., a full-service landscape company in Lake Bluff, Illinois, says they will be raising prices in their area due to the extreme labor shortage. As Kinnucan looks to pay his people more, and to deal with rising health insurance costs, raising prices is the only answer.

“We are currently looking at a 27 percent increase in our health care premiums,” Kinnucan says. “On top of that, we continue to uphold a belief in paying fairly for services.”

Kinnucan says that “predatory pricing” is a problem in the industry and that landscape business owners often fall into that trap. They don’t charge enough for what they do, and they don’t pay enough for the services their laborers provide.

“It’s destructive when we don’t value or charge enough for the services we provide,” he says. “Consequently, we don’t pay enough, either. In a lot of urban areas in this country, it is very difficult for a family to live on $40,000, and yet we are not paying a livable wage.”

Kinnucan says his company has always been on the higher end of the pricing spectrum in their marketplace and that trend will continue. Though he knows mowing has become heavily commoditized — “it’s all about how fast and cheap you can get it done” — he says he is committed to a higher standard.

“My philosophy has always been that if we can’t run the business the way I believe we should be running it, and charge what we need to charge to do that, then I’ll do something else,” Kinnucan says. “We have always had a high standard of service and have delivered on that. As a result, we will continue to be pricing leaders in our marketplace.”

Big business: Neave Group Outdoor Solutions

Approximate revenue: $3.5 million for mowing/maintenance and $12 million total for company

Neave Group does both commercial and residential mowing and raised prices in both segments in 2017. However, this year they will raise prices on the commercial side and hold on the residential side.

The hold is due to being able to raise prices significantly enough in 2017 that it will retain their profitability this year, says Jason Wegiel, director of services for the company, which is headquartered in Wappingers Falls, New York. Wegiel admits that setting prices can be challenging and always requires evaluating a number of factors.

“For us, insurance premiums are one of the most critical factors driving our pricing,” he says. “It’s a factor that must constantly be evaluated. On top of that, the cost of labor is rising as we see an increasing shortage of workers in our area. In a nutshell, there are fewer workers and they cost more to hire. We’re also seeing fuel take a jump in our area.”

With these costs rising, Wegiel says that raising prices was inevitable for the New York company, which is part of a larger umbrella group that does everything from design/build to pools and even specialty niches like sports courts. Having such a rounded service package has been an excellent way for the company to build value in their clients’ eyes. But that’s not to say they don’t also deal with lowballers. On the maintenance side, Wegiel says lowballers in their area are a definite problem.

“We see a lot of it,” he admits. “Unfortunately, we find that there are a lot of companies in our area that are cutting corners and lowering standards. It’s frustrating. But we do not compete against them. We do not lower our prices just because there are guys out there undercutting them. We ride out the storm.”

Although Wegiel says it’s a frustration, he says those fly-by-night companies do ultimately fail.

“It’s a shame because it does lower the perception of what services should cost and it reverses budgets — something that can take years to return to a fair market price,” he says. “But even so, we hold firm. We may lose a few jobs here and there to a company like that, but they ultimately do a poor job, lose the account and it comes back to us anyways.”

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Like A Boss: Separating Good Job Leads From The Bad

Michael Pickel, owner.
Photo: Pickel Landscape Group

Michael Pickel, owner of Pickel Landscape Group in Landenberg, Pennsylvania, says that he used to get flooded with so many calls come spring that it inundated the sales team. The phone would be relatively quiet during the off-season but come March, Pickel says it would ring off the hook. With so many calls coming in, Pickel says it became challenging to weed out the good leads from the bad. While he says he used to think that any lead was good, it got to the point that they were running around too much — with too many unprofitable jobs eating up their time. Now, he has his sales team spend more time on the phone filtering out jobs that are the best fit.

“We’ve put several changes into place that have helped us to filter out clients that aren’t going to be the right fit for us,” Pickel says. “For one, we are very upfront and clear on what we do. We simply don’t have the capacity to follow through on every single clean-up lead if it’s not going to lead to more work.”

That’s why Pickel says he has his sales team ask some important questions over the phone to determine if a one-time clean-up job might lead to something more. If the client isn’t likely to want continued maintenance throughout the year — or maybe some future design/build work — then Pickel will most likely turn the lead down.

“I’d rather spend five or 10 minutes on the phone with calls that come in, finding out exactly what it is that they want, then to waste time sending people out to jobs that aren’t really going to be a good fit for us,” Pickel says. “We no longer run out every time the phone rings. There are just too many leads that turn out to be time vacuums, where you run around and do small jobs that really don’t go anywhere.”

Pickel says they focus on five key points when a potential lead comes in. Each of these items is considered before making a decision to follow through on a lead or not:

1. Geographic Location: How long is it going to take to get to the jobsite and back each day?
2. Their Level of Seriousness: How long has the prospect been thinking of this project? What is their motivation to get it done?
3. Scope of Work: How much time is this project going to take?
4. Expectations: What is the prospect’s timeline for having the project completed? Can it realistically fit
   into our timeline as a company?
5. Their Selection Process: How is this prospect going to choose a contractor? Are they just shopping around based on price? Is the selection process going to drag on?

Pickel says that with the current landscape climate being the way it is — more work than there are team members in a lot of cases — it’s more important than ever to be diligent about leads.

“We need to be extra careful to make sure that each lead we field is worth the time we put in,” he says. “That means each question we ask, of those five considerations, should up the percentage that we close a lead for a profitable customer.”

Our Like a Boss series highlights some common business challenges landscape professionals face and how they conquer them. Discuss your biggest business challenges on LawnSite’s Business Management forum.

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Is Remote Jobsite Monitoring For You?

Two major landscape equipment manufacturers are now taking connectivity to the production equipment we use every day.

Briggs & Stratton and Husqvarna have developed innovative systems to connect landscape company owners and managers with the real-time, in-the-field performance of their landscape and snow production equipment and, by extension, the employees who use it. And they do this without having someone on the ground supervising production.

Let’s start with InfoHub, the Internet of Things (IoT) device and web-based platform that Briggs & Stratton showcased at this past fall’s GIE+EXPO. Most simply, it’s a system that allows an owner or manager to track the location and usage of equipment in real time, any time via a website. But its capabilities extend way beyond equipment location and usage. The on-the-job data that it tracks and collects is fed from a cloud-based platform to the InfoHub portal, which can be instantly accessed.

The nature and the volume of the data, a function of its 75-plus platform features, greatly aids scheduling, job bidding and analysis, proof of service and equipment maintenance, says Jason Rives, general manager of Brake Landscape and Lawn Care in St. Louis, Missouri. Improving any of these operational functions benefits any company’s efficiency and profitability; improving on most or all of them is a huge win, he says.

A full season of InfoHub

Brake Landscaping and Lawn Care began using InfoHub this past May. It was one of 24 companies giving the Briggs & Stratton system its baptism under fire on clients’ properties during 2016 and 2017.

In Brake Landscaping’s case, a local Ferris dealer visited its headquarters and installed InfoHub on about 40 of its mowers in a single day. Installation takes minutes, says Rives, and it’s agnostic, meaning that InfoHub can be installed on any piece of gasoline-fueled equipment with a battery, regardless of size or color of the unit.

Rives says he grew to depend more and more on the system as this past mowing season progressed. He adds that as he became more familiar with the system, he also became more impressed with the value of the information it shared with him on its dashboard.

“At any given time, I can pull up the website and immediately see where every mower in our fleet is then and there. There is no lag time. I can see even what direction the mowers are moving and the patterns they are making,” says Rives, adding that being able to watch his firm’s equipment, and how it’s being used by employees from jobsite to jobsite in real time resulted in significant savings for his company in 2017.

Mowing margins improve

Rives says his company this past season more than doubled its budgeted 10 percent margin for mowing. He says the system provides visibility to profitability by jobs and by crew, making it much easier for a company like his to determine whether it is making money or losing money on each property or project.

Beyond that, the system is a great training tool, too. Rives appreciates being able to pull up the history of specific jobs and showing and explaining to employees how to do them more efficiently. In the end, the more efficient a company becomes, the more leverage it gains in pricing, bidding and selling work in its marketplace, he says.

“We had one crew finishing a job after 5 p.m. After we let them know about the program and made some suggestions to improve their performance, they began finishing the job about 3 p.m. and the quality was just as good. That crew wasn’t purposely messing around; they were just going up and beyond what the client expected of them,” recalls Rives.

Other savings result from not having to have a supervisor spending so much time on jobsites monitoring what everybody is doing and how they’re doing it, Rives says.

“If I didn’t get this installed when I did, I was going to hire another production manager to help out with the load. It’s definitely saving us management and supervisory time,” he adds.

After mowing season was over, Rives said he was investigating using it for snow services. Also, he plans, using the program’s route-optimization features, to streamline the process of scheduling more than 700 mowing jobs for spring 2018, a task that usually takes him weeks each off-season.

Husqvarna Fleet Services

Early in 2017, Husqvarna shared its Fleet Services system with the U.S. green media at its “Silent City North America” event in Miami, Florida. Fleet Services is a cloud-based system that connects its lawn services machines and their in-the-field operators directly to an online portal.

Three components make up the system — machine sensors (which work for gas and battery tools whether ride-on or handheld), a Wi-Fi base station and an operator tag. The sensor transmits the data to the cloud, which can be accessed via an online portal or a mobile application using the Fleet Services app.

The machine sensor is designed for Husqvarna commercial lawn equipment — ride-on mowers, walk-behind mowers, and commercial-grade trimmers, backpack blowers, hedge-trimmers and chainsaws. The system allows company owners and managers to see what their production equipment is doing on jobsites by capturing and recording precisely when equipment is on or off, how long it is on, when it is idling and when it is actually working, including what level of power is being used.

The data from each piece of equipment is uploaded to the cloud where you can access and review it via the dashboard on your computer or tablet. After data on machine usage and landscaping teams is collected, the intuitive software optimizes the process by sorting the information into the following categories:

• Workday log — reveals how productive the company really is, visualizing how much the whole fleet, or individual machines, are being used.
• Interactive maintenance system — keeps track of all machines and alerts both the service manager and Husqvarna dealer before maintenance intervals.
• Machine handling — Improves machine handling to prolong the life of the product, improve safe machine operation and reduce fatigue for crew members as well as boost efficiency and productivity.
• Vibration reports — focuses on improving the health and safety of operators in the field by helping them better understand and manage vibration levels. All power tools generate a certain level of movement.
• Library — continuously aims to arm both management and operators with practical, up-to-date insights and tools. This includes operator manuals, workshop manuals, parts lists, machine handling movies and tutorials.
• Business lead bank — landscaping teams can submit business leads from the field. Those business leads end up in a business lead bank, making it easier for landscapers to communicate the most cost-efficient way to improve maintenance levels on properties under their care.
• Individualized green care — allows managers to create the information around each property. Information can include tasks, dates, frequency, quality levels, location information and contact information.

Fleet Services has been in development and testing for several years, both in Europe and the U.S. Husqvarna is planning a limited launch in the second quarter of 2018. Pricing for Fleet Services, a subscription service, will be announced at product launch.

Read more:

• Why Sebert Landscape Embraces Battery Power
• ‘Talking’ Power Equipment Coming to You Soon

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TCIA Announces New President: This Week’s Industry News

Want to keep up with the latest news in lawn care and landscaping? Check back every Thursday for a quick recap of recent happenings in the green industry.

Tree Care Industry Association Announces New President & CEO
The Board of Directors of the Tree Care Industry Association (TCIA) has announced that David White, CAE, will join the association as its new president and CEO. The change of leadership follows the recently announced retirement of current president & CEO, Mark Garvin. White is currently the executive director of the Northeast Public Power Association, a non-profit trade association that represents consumer-owned utilities in New England. He previously served as the director of external affairs and strategy for the Massachusetts Dental Society. White has a bachelor’s degree in political science from Northeastern University, as well as an MBA and Juris Doctor degree from Suffolk University. White will be joining TCIA on March 19. He will be attending the association’s Winter Management Conference in February to meet with members. Garvin plans to retire in April after 21 years at TCIA and 11 years as President and CEO. He joined TCIA in 1996 as the editor of Tree Care Industry Magazine.

NALP Launches 10-Hour OSHA Construction Course For The Landscape Industry
The National Association of Landscape Professionals announced that, through its partnership with the OSHA Alliance, they are launching the new 10-Hour OSHA Construction Course for the Landscape Industry. The course provides basic training on the recognition, avoidance, abatement and prevention of workplace hazards in addition to information regarding workers’ rights, employer responsibilities, and filing a complaint. The courses are taught by OSHA authorized trainers and attendees will receive a wallet card and certificate upon completion.

Yamaha Motor Finance Corp., USA Promotes Jeff Young to President
Yamaha Motor Finance Corp., USA, has named Mr. Jeff Young President effective January 1, 2018. Young joined YMFUS in 2014 as Chief Operating Officer, responsible for building out Yamaha’s new captive finance company. In the company’s first few years Young has led the growth of the company launching several key business lines: a non-prime retail installment program, a retail credit card business, and the current transition of the wholesale finance business to an in-house program launching in late 2018. As part of YMFUS’s continued growth, Brian Hinchman has been hired to fill the newly created role of Vice President, Wholesale Finance. Hinchman has extensive management experience in financial services, formerly serving as Vice President, Operations of TCF Inventory Finance, and various management roles with both GE Capital, and Transamerica Distribution Finance. In his new role, Hinchman will lead the wholesale finance business transition to an in-house program later in 2018.

OPEI Board Chair Dan Ariens and Kris Kiser Inspect New Building
Recently, OPEI Board Chairman and Ariens Company President and CEO Dan Ariens and OPEI President Kris Kiser performed final inspections at OPEI’s new headquarters in Old Town Alexandria. Due to the Outdoor Power Equipment Institute’s continued growth and high rates of member engagement, the Board of Directors purchased a new headquarters building to accommodate members, staff, and a new state-of-the-art conference center. The new building opens in February.

Arborjet Announces Updates to PHOSPHO-jet Label
Arborjet Inc. has announced new updates to the PHOSPHO-jet label, expanding the versatility of this systemic fungicide and plant resistance activator for the suppression of various plant diseases. The PHOSPHO-jet label has been updated to allow for additional application methods such as bark sprays, foliar sprays, drenches, root dips and new instructions for use in hydroponic systems. The formulation of the product remains the same.

ASV Adds New York Dealer to Network
ASV Holdings Inc. has added Jim Reed’s Truck Sales to its dealer network. The Cortlandt Manor, New York-based dealer will offer all ASV Posi-Track compact track loaders, featuring best-in-class rated operating capacity, cooling systems and hydraulic efficiency, from the RT-30, the industry’s smallest sit-on CTL, to the new VT-70, ASV’s first mid-frame, vertical lift model, and all the way up to the RT-120 Forestry unit, the industry’s most powerful CTL. The company will also carry ASV’s full line of skid-steer loaders.

EquipmentWatch Announces Winners of 3rd Annual Highest Retained Value Awards
EquipmentWatch has announced the winners of the 2018 Highest Retained Value Awards. Awards in each category were given to the model/series projected to retain the highest percentage of its original value after a five-year period based on the comprehensive EquipmentWatch market activity database. Thirty awards were presented in total and announced in Las Vegas alongside the first-day kickoff of World of Concrete. The awards program, in its 3rd consecutive year, recognizes winners in construction, agricultural and lift/access equipment categories. Two new categories were introduced in 2018 – corn headers in the agricultural sector and tandem compactors in the construction sector.

Ditch Witch Announces Updated Parts Lookup Online Tool
The Ditch Witch organization has released an advanced version of their, web-based tool that helps customers reduce downtime by finding the service parts they need. The Ditch Witch Parts Lookup gives customers easy access to detailed parts information, and a direct line of communication to dealerships for part verification and pick-list creation. Customers can use Parts Lookup to find service parts by serial number, part name, equipment model or keywords. They can also add all equipment in their fleet by serial number for easy reference to manuals, parts diagrams and future service parts needs. And, the design provides graphical views of each equipment model’s parts to visually verify all service parts before developing a final pick-list with dealers for order requests.

Ewing Opens Two New Locations In Florida
Ewing Irrigation & Landscape Supply recently opened two new Florida locations: St. Petersburg and Naples. The St. Petersburg store’s product selection includes lawn and ornamental, irrigation, hardscapes, sports fields, golf course, landscape and tree supplies and safety products. It’s one of 13 full-service Ewing locations in Florida. The Naples location, is about 160 miles south of the new St. Petersburg store, and will service contractors and homeowners in southern Florida with irrigation, turf management, hardscape, pest control, landscape lighting and golf- or sports-field-related jobs.

Excel Industries Appoints New President and CEO After Retirement Announcement
Excel Industries, a manufacturer of commercial and residential turf equipment sold under the Hustler and BigDog Mower Co. brand names, announced President and CEO Paul Mullet will retire. Joseph C. Wright will join Excel Industries as CEO on February 12, 2018. Mullet’s decision to retire comes after 45 years with Excel Industries, serving as president and CEO since 1991. He will remain actively engaged through March, assisting with Wright’s transition. Mullet also will continue to serve on the company’s Board of Directors, a role he has held since 1983. The Board of Directors selected Wright as CEO after an exhaustive search. Wright comes to Excel Industries from Concept Metal Group, a provider of metal processing, metal finishing, powder coating, assemblies, and supply chain management, where he served as president. Prior to that, he spent 21 years with Briggs & Stratton Corporation, the world’s largest producer of gasoline engines for outdoor power equipment.

John Deere at World of Concrete
John Deere Construction & Forestry with three new announcements made at World of Concrete:

• John Deere is introducing its new 344L compact wheel loader, combining speed, precision and exceptional lift capacity for year-round productivity.
• Rounding out the full line of G-Series skid steers/compact track loaders from John Deere, the new G-Series mid-frame machines deliver increased performance and higher pushing power.
• Today, John Deere is launching its second annual Small Machines. Big Impact. contest, where entrants are encouraged to share how they would make a positive difference in their communities if they were to win a new John Deere G-Series machine.

Ruppert Landscape Announces Company Promotions
Ruppert Landscape has announced the promotion of Mike Monde to the newly created position of director of culture and procedures within our landscape management division and the promotion of Tim Schofield to the position of branch manager in our King of Prussia, Pennsylvania landscape management branch. Also, Paul Pestun has been promoted to the position of director of business development in the company’s landscape construction division.

Kubota Introduces the KX033-4 with New Extendable Dipper Arm
From the showroom floor at World of Concrete, Kubota Tractor Corporation introduces the new KX033-4 with extendable dipper arm. The new KX033-4 weighs in as a three-ton class machine yet boasts the reach and dig depth of a heavier weight class.  Ideal for those hard to reach areas, the KX033-4’s optional extendable dipper arm can be quickly and easily extended up to 31 inches, boosting productivity as well as efficiency. Its impressive capabilities include a digging depth of 12 feet 2 inches and a digging reach of and a digging reach of 18 feet 3 inches. The new KX033-4 with extendable dipper arm is now available at Kubota dealerships.

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Buy, Lease, Rent: Options in Equipment Acquisition

Snow management is an equipment-intensive business, there’s no question about that. Where questions can sometimes arise is how best to obtain that equipment. Does it make the most sense to buy or lease or rent it? There are many factors to consider when making this decision, say representatives from several major equipment manufacturers.

A full accounting

When looking to procure a new piece of equipment, the place to start is often not with your dealer but with your accountant, advises Tharen Peterson, territory business manager with New Holland Construction. “A lot of times the decision to buy or lease comes down to each contractor or company’s individual cash or tax situation,” he says. “Your accountant may recommend that you buy or lease something based on what your books look like in a certain year.” (Or, he may advise that you don’t acquire any new equipment in a particular year.) Cash on hand, depreciation, current tax law, finance rates, etc. — all of these factors and more can be used to calculate which option makes the most sense.

In addition to traditional leases with a fair market buyout at the end, there are also dollar-buyout leases, in which, at the end of the lease, the lessor pays $1 and takes ownership of the equipment. In essence, this is the same as buying equipment with a loan. There can be tax advantages to this type of lease, thanks to the Section 179 tax law, which says, basically, that depending on how you structure the lease deal, if the end-user basically has ownership of that equipment, they (if they are a small- or medium-size company) can take the full cost of that equipment against their income the year they put that equipment in place. For profitable companies, this creates tax savings.

An outright purchase of equipment obviously meets the requirements for Section 179 tax benefits to apply, and so do some leases, such as dollar buyout leases, if they are considered capital leases rather than operating leases (where the financing company still has ownership of the equipment), he states. For comparison sake, a typical car lease, where the vehicle is turned back in after three years, would be considered an operating lease. Again, it’s important to talk to an accountant or a reputable lender to get more details on the tax implications and details about how specific loans and leases work in order to decide what makes the most sense for your business.

The benefits of new equipment

One factor in deciding how and when to acquire new equipment is the demanding nature of this industry. “When it snows, your contracts depend on that removal to happen at a very urgent pace after that snow falls,” says Brad Stemper, product manager with Case Construction Equipment. “People need to be assured that their contractor is there, prepared, ready to remove that snow — any downtime that the snow occurrence creates for your customers is potentially lost revenue and people being dissatisfied. So there’s a real urgency.”

What that means from an equipment standpoint is that the approach of getting by with older equipment or fewer machines than needed doesn’t work as well in snow removal as it might in, say, landscape contracting.

“One of the worst things that can happen is you get out to that parking lot at 4 a.m. to try to get it cleared before a store opens and the machine won’t start,” Stemper says. “In snow removal, contractors need to be able to depend on their equipment.”

For that reason, he sees a lot of snow management customers either buy new equipment and roll it over regularly (even trading it in annually) or lease to ensure they are routinely getting a new machine. “That way they can guarantee the newness of a machine, and the expected dependability that comes with a new or a relatively new machine,” he says.

Weighing the options

“Tax advantages, cash flow, total cost of ownership, residual values, repair costs, projected yearly usage and new machine features are just a few items considered when making the decision to purchase, lease or rent,” says Jeff Jacobsmeyer, Kubota product manager for excavators, wheel loaders and TLBs. “Each owner has to evaluate and answer these questions and many more to manage to the profitability of their business.”

That said, there are some general guidelines to help in the decision-making process. One key consideration is that “Less cash is usually needed to enter into a lease situation rather than a typical purchase,” Jacobsmeyer says.

“That’s due to the fact that you’re really just paying for the depreciation on that piece of machinery,” adds New Holland’s Tharen Peterson.

The lower monthly payment gives a company flexibility in how to spend that extra cash, whether it’s another piece of equipment or meeting payroll, etc. Leasing can provide flexibility in another way, as well. In the event that companies decide they want to hang on to that equipment “there usually, if not always, is a buyout option at the end of a lease term, and that price is usually laid out upfront so you know what you would be looking at at the end of your term,” Peterson says. Of course, he also adds that while leases can offer lower payments, that needs to be weighed against the fact that the user doesn’t build up any equity in the machine. And, he adds, “On a leased piece of equipment, the contractor is generally responsible for all maintenance, just like if they owned it.”

In addition, leases do include limits on usage — say, for instance, 1,000 operating hours per year. While normal wear and tear that’s to be expected based on the hours isn’t penalized, any additional damage can incur extra charges, says Case’s Brad Stemper. Fortunately, he says, snow removal work doesn’t take the same toll on machinery that heavy-duty, off-road construction work, for example, might.

Peterson recommends that contractors factor growth into the projections for how many hours they’ll be running a piece of leased equipment. “Nobody goes into business to flatline and just do OK,” he says. So projecting for growth is important when it comes to negotiating how many hours will be included in the lease and at what cost.

Some companies would rather purchase than lease equipment, either because they are committed to caring for and maintaining it, or because it makes the most sense given the number of hours they’ll need to use it. “Pride of ownership and having other year round uses for the equipment, other than just snow removal, may make an outright purchase more feasible for profitability,” says Kubota’s Jeff Jacobsmeyer. Sometimes it’s possible to split the difference, he adds: “Many times the larger blades and pushing attachments are owned and used year after year and just the power units are under a lease agreement.”

Finally, Peterson recommends finding a dependable dealer — someone who is there when service is needed and who asks questions during the purchase process to be sure that a particular piece of equipment will work for the needed application, and that the approach to obtaining it (buying vs. renting vs. leasing) makes sense for the customer’s unique circumstances.

Rental rundown

“In snow removal applications, renting equipment tends to be something done to meet a momentary need,” says Brad Stemper with Case. That could occur in the event that a piece of equipment goes down, a larger-than-normal storm strikes, a new account is taken on at the last minute, etc. In these emergency situations, rental makes sense as a short-term solution.

New Holland’s Tharen Peterson adds, though, that there are also longer-term rental arrangement that are popular with snow removal contractors. “We see a lot of ‘snow rental’ business from companies that might not have enough work upfront to justify the purchase of a machine, but they’ll rent it for a set period of time, and then they have the right to just return the machine when that period is over,” he says. This might also provide flexibility for a snow management company that has a contract in which they need to have a piece of equipment staged on a client’s site throughout the winter. It also means that there are no maintenance expenses involved.

The risk of going this route is that, in the event of a heavy snow year, the hours limit in the rental agreement may have to be dramatically exceeded, Peterson says. “If you go over your hour limit, you’ll have to pay the dealership extra,” he says, noting that this may be OK for a contractor if they are getting paid extra for all of the added snow work done, but in the case of a fixed snow management contract this can become a financial challenge.

An additional consideration is that the monthly payments for a long-term rental will usually be higher than they would be even for an equipment purchase. “But if you don’t have enough work to keep the equipment running in the off-season, it may make sense,” Peterson says. And he adds that some contractors also find long-term rentals to be a good way to test out (for longer periods than a dealer demo will allow) how well a particular piece or type of equipment works and how the dealership performs before deciding to commit to a purchase.

Finally, Peterson says that some companies will opt for what is called a rental purchase. “They’ll make an agreement to buy the piece at the end of the rental, or to have the option to buy it,” he says. Some dealers will apply, say, the first three payments and a portion of subsequent payments toward the purchase if that eventually takes place. In the event that a piece of equipment is used far more than expected (the scenario outlined above of the monster snow winter), it sometimes becomes less expensive for a contractor to purchase the rental equipment rather than to pay the added cost for going over the hour limit, Peterson says.

Working the system

Whether it’s a lease or a purchase, when a contractor is looking to buy a new fleet or replace an existing fleet of equipment, “they’re looking for an attractive price, sure, but they’re also looking at how that price relates to their potential business,” Stemper says. “They’re looking at the purchasing and financing options that are available to them. They’ll negotiate with the dealership, and they’ll negotiate with the financier to make sure that they have attractive payments.”

Case, for example, works with its dealers to educate and train them on how to serve the needs of customers, not only in terms of the equipment but also the purchase process itself. “Just like with automotive companies, the dealership can be really integral” in presenting financing options, Stemper says. Sometimes the dealer offers financing themselves, sometimes equipment manufacturers have a financing arm that dealers can leverage, and sometimes they can search out options for those that have special circumstances, he says.

In some cases, a manufacturer or dealer may be offering a special lease deal or interest rate on particular models in order to boost sales during a certain times of the year. Kubota, for example, says that it will run seasonal programs in snowy regions to make it attractive for customers to acquire the company’s equipment for the season ahead.

It also doesn’t hurt to check with your local bank to see what rate they may be able to offer; even if you decide to finance through the manufacturer or dealer, the bank’s rate may provide a point of reference or leverage to negotiate a lower rate.

And Stemper notes that it is sometimes possible to structure an equipment purchase or lease where payments can be deferred. “You might be able to pay in advance when it does snow, so that you can skip payments if it doesn’t, or defer payments to certain times of the year when you have more consistent income,” he says. Stemper adds that this approach is most common with equipment that will only be used for part of the year; for example, a landscape contractor that is looking to get into snow removal might look to arrange for flexible payments on a machine that will only be used for plowing, while signing a more conventional contract on equipment that they know will be in use year-round.

Visit PlowSite.com for more forums on equipment, business management and technical information. Join the conversation in the largest community of snow and ice business professionals.

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What’s In My Truck: Conserva Irrigation

Russ Jundt, owner and founder of Conserva Irrigation headquartered in Richmond, Virginia, says that for the longest time he would get a work vehicle to double as his personal vehicle. But he realized that often created the propensity for him to say, “I’ll just do it myself” when it came to job tasks. As a result, he found himself often running around from job to job in a company vehicle until one day he just said “enough.”

“I recognized that I couldn’t be in the field any longer — that it wasn’t the right way to grow my business,” Jundt says. “So, I literally drove myself to the dealership and got a vehicle — one that couldn’t haul a trailer or one I didn’t want to throw my muddy boots in. I needed to force myself to do that.” Today, Jundt drives an Acura RDX, but says it’s his service vehicles that really shine. A lot of thought was put into them and they are a critical tool that help Conserva technicians across all 32 territories in which the company operates (Conserva is built around a franchise business model).

Read more: Conserva Irrigation Offering Franchise Opportunities

We are all about systems here; it’s no different with our vehicles. One system we have in place is color coding each van. Everything in the purple van, for instance, is painted purple. The idea is that if more than one vehicle shows up on any given jobsite and tools get mixed up, there’s no question which ones go back in the purple van.

We have something called the Conserva Pak to ensure the vehicles are always equipped properly. The Conserva Pak, which is proprietary and we build in-house, houses all the parts and tools that our techs need to get the job done. Everything has a place that is strategically thought out. So, the parts that get used the most are in the very front of the drawer so that the tech doesn’t even have to open it all the way. The parts that are used less often are in the back. Every truck is identical so that even if a different tech pops in the truck, they know exactly where everything is. It’s incredibly efficient this way.

The most expensive part of irrigation work is getting the tech to the job. That’s why we have systems in place to ensure the crews don’t wind up at a job and realize they don’t have the right parts or tools. That inefficiency is not only costing us, but it also looks unfavorable to the homeowner.

Everything on our vehicles, both inside and out, is intentional. That even includes our wrap. You know instantly when you look at this wrap what we do and how to reach us.

We also have an image of a man — who we’ve named Carson — on our van. That’s an image that we purchased after we surveyed customers and they voted for that wrap idea. There are a lot of things about Carson that appeal to people — he has silver hair, which some people associate with wisdom. He is clean-cut and has a pen, looking like he’s ready to listen. It’s become a bit of a “culture thing” at the office that we all like to snap photos with Carson. We need to figure out who he is. I’m thinking of running a contest to “find Carson.” I need a real photo with this guy.

The Essentials

The Conserva Pak — Our proprietary toolbox.

Samsung 2.0 Tablet — Everyone is equipped with a 10-inch tablet for communication and even that starts their time clock. They “punch in and out” on the tablet.

Chargers — In this age of communication, you’re dead in the water if your phone or tablet dies.

Lunch — We encourage our technicians to pack their own lunches and resist the temptation to eat junk on the road.

Water — Because we work in the field, our techs all have gallon jugs of water. On hot days, we’ll have coolers of Gatorade and bottled water in the office when they stop through.

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