Interview with Joshua Dake, CEO of Osprey Landscape Group
The Commercial Landscaper Podcast
Release Date: 11/13/2024
Interview with Andrew Martin, President of Urban Landcare
The Commercial Landscaper Podcast
Andrew Martin, founder of Urban Landcare, has worked in the landscape industry for 25 years, including 20 years in San Diego. After obtaining degrees in Business and Horticulture, Andrew was recruited by the largest landscape maintenance company in the country, Valleycrest. His primary experience includes managing large-scale, high-demand landscapes, such as military bases and master-planned communities. His career has spanned landscape management for commercial and industrial properties, residential estates, HOAs, hotels, and apartment buildings. After gaining valuable experience in...
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Interview with Jerry Schill, President and CEO of Schill Grounds Management
The Commercial Landscaper Podcast
Jerry Schill founded Schill Grounds Management in 1993, and as CEO he sets the strategic vision for the company and makes executive and financial decisions that drive profitable growth and scale. Beginning in 2020, Jerry partnered with Argonne Capital to proactively drive consolidation in the highly fragmented commercial grounds management and snow and ice removal industry by acquiring independent privately held businesses that add contiguous geographic expansion for Schill. Jerry has three decades of leadership experience, and he believes in running the business with family values, integrity,...
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Interview with Sean Eddy, Account Executive at TOP Green by Turing
The Commercial Landscaper Podcast
Account Executive at TOP Green, a company revolutionizing the commercial landscaping industry. A veteran of the US Marine Corps, Sean brings that same discipline and strategic focus to the world of SaaS, empowering businesses to embrace cutting-edge technology and achieve unprecedented levels of efficiency. With a passion for driving impactful change, he's helping hardworking businesses across the country optimize their operations, reduce inefficiencies, and unlock their full potential. Connect with Sean!
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Interview with Tanner Spross (Operating Partner) & Evan Shufflebarger (VP of Corporate Strategy) of Heartland, LLC
The Commercial Landscaper Podcast
Evan Shufflebarger Evan is a native of Topeka, KS and a University of Kansas alumni with a diverse background in consulting, investing, and M&A. After starting his career in internal consulting at a Fortune 150 financial services firm, he transitioned to buyside credit investing, where he advanced from data analytics for structured products to managing private equity investments and commercial real estate lending. Evan's next role, his first in M&A, was with a large family-owned logistics company, focusing on acquisitions, joint ventures, and capital projects. Since joining HeartLand...
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Interview with Colin Reader, Founder & CEO of Wild Flower Lawns and Meadows Ltd
The Commercial Landscaper Podcast
Colin grew up in southern England in the countryside spending most of his childhood on a farm with a love of wild flower meadows and nature. His passion led him to employment within conservation organisations but in the late 1990’s when his best friend lost his wife in tragic circumstances he switched jobs to help support him with his woodland consultancy business and out of the blue they landed a fascinating contract advising on and managing wildlife habitat restoration projects for a philanthropic family on a large country estate, many of these projects involved grassland areas which had...
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Interview with Robert Murray, CEO & Co-Founder of Intrigue
The Commercial Landscaper Podcast
Rob Murray is the Co-founder and CEO of Intrigue Media, a digital marketing company that has been empowering and growing businesses in the home improvement space for the last 15 years. Intrigue has been on Canada's Growth 500 list for four years, is a Google Premier Partner and is Meta Certified. Rob directs the organizational vision, works with clients to grow their businesses, and ensures that Intrigue has the right people and the right tools to get results. He is the past President of the Entrepreneurs' Organization in Southwest Ontario and past digital marketing chair for his local...
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Interview with Bradley Hill, Director of Operations at Par 3 Landscape Management
The Commercial Landscaper Podcast
Brad started his first landscape business at age 8 with his older brother. They started in residential landscape maintenance with a route of 10 homes. After 4 years of building the business, they landed their first commercial accounts maintaining 2 hospital campuses in Denver, CO. He ran his company for a total of 10 years and sold the company at the age of 18. To broaden his life experience and serve people in a foreign country, Brad took two years off from college and work to serve as a missionary for his church in Brazil. During this time, he learned Portuguese and developed his leadership...
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Interview with Jennifer Lemcke, Chief Executive Officer at Weed Man-Mosquito Hero-TurfBot
The Commercial Landscaper Podcast
Jennifer Lemcke brings over 30 years of experience to her leadership role at Weed Man, where she first began her career as a manager trainee in Ottawa in 1993. Over the years, Jennifer has worked in every department within the company, gaining hands-on knowledge and a deep understanding of the lawn care industry. Her journey with Weed Man saw her rise from General Manager of Weed Man Ottawa, where she helped grow the franchise revenue from $200,000 to $2 million in five years, to a key player in the company’s expansion across North America. Her leadership played a crucial role in launching...
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Interview with Rick Grimes, VP of Operations at Wire Network
The Commercial Landscaper Podcast
Rick Grimes is a 30-year technology professional, with deep experience in Marketing, Operations, and Data Analysis. He has held leadership positions at companies of all sizes, ranging from some of the biggest companies in the world, such as Microsoft and Yahoo, to small startups that were still figuring out what to call themselves. Rick caught the AI bug about two years ago and has been using, teaching, and evangelizing AI ever since. He has taught hundreds of people how to incorporate AI into both their professional and personal workflows to create efficiencies and enable new capabilities. He...
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Interview with Brant Wichman, CEO and Owner of Customer Insight LLC and Cutting Edge Landscapes LLC
The Commercial Landscaper Podcast
This is Brant Wichman who has run a successful high-end landscape construction company in Lincoln Nebraska for the past 14 years. As a contractor he interacted with customers each and every day and kept thinking that there has to be a way to help contractors know their client better before they step foot on their property. A reverse Angie, a reverse BBB.... something. One day he took a leap of faith and took the blue collar mentality to tech country and started to develop this app for contractors. A few years later Customer Insight NOW was born. A fast and easy-to-use software that...
info_outlineFor the past 26 years, Josh has worked in the landscape industry. After graduating from Virginia Tech, he relocated to southern California and began his career in the wholesale nursery industry where he served as Director of Operations for a 250 acre growing facility. In 2002, he transitioned into Landscape Management as an Account Manager and Sports Turf Manager at TruGreen LandCare. In 2005, he went to work for Brickman in San Diego where he held positions from Enhancement Manager to Vice President and General Manager for both the LA and San Diego Markets. In 2017 and after the transition to BrightView, Josh was promoted to Senior Vice President of the Southwest and later to Group Senior Vice President of the Southwest and Texas where he oversaw teams of up to 3,000 employees and $400M in revenue.
Josh now serves as CEO of the newly formed Osprey Landscape Group based out of San Diego. Osprey was formed as a holding company in late 2023 and currently operates Pacific Landscape Management in Portland, OR and Pacific Landscape Maintenance in Seattle, WA. Building on Pacific’s strong reputation for quality and culture in the Pacific Northwest, Osprey is continuing it’s expansion across the western United States through organic growth and a strong M&A strategy.