Ryan Drake is the Vice President of J.F.D. Landscapes, Inc., a family-owned and operated full-service landscape company based in Northeast Ohio. Founded in 1989 by his parents, Joe and Natalie Drake, J.F.D. Landscapes has grown into a trusted name in the industry, combining expertise with a deep commitment to quality and community. Ryan's journey in the landscape industry began early, spending summers and winter breaks working for the family business from 2007 to 2014. After earning full-time in...
Jul 02, 2025•18 min
Prior to his acquisition of a Commercial Landscaping Company in 2022, Chris had a successful career in Finance, spending the past twelve years in consulting, mergers & acquisitions (buy and sell side transactions in the petrochemical space). He co-founded Salem Oak Vineyards in 2013, produced several award-winning wines, and helped grow the business to $750,000 in sales. He continues to serve as a strategic partner to the winery. Chris has also built a successful real estate portfolio over t...
Jun 25, 2025•21 min
Rich is a transformative leader and pioneering environmentalist on a mission to Scale Conservation. Armed with a PhD in data science, Rich combines relentless commitment with visionary thinking to redefine our relationship with the natural world. He founded Oxygen Conservation in 2021 and has rapidly built it into one of the world’s most impactful natural capital portfolios, valued at £150 million and actively transforming almost 45,000 acres into thriving ecosystems for people and wildlife. Ric...
Jun 18, 2025•20 min
Darrell Turman is a leading outdoor cooking expert and consultant based in Colorado, specializing in the design and installation of custom outdoor kitchens. With decades of hands-on experience and a deep passion for fire and gas-based cooking, Darrell helps homeowners transform their backyards into high-performance culinary spaces. Whether it’s designing the perfect grill island, curating premium appliances, or managing full-scale outdoor kitchen builds, Darrell brings a rare blend of technical ...
Jun 11, 2025•32 min
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, resid...
Jun 04, 2025•27 min
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 deca...
May 28, 2025•22 min
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 ...
May 21, 2025•32 min
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 logistic...
May 14, 2025•34 min
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 philanthr...
May 07, 2025•23 min
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 Ent...
Apr 30, 2025•21 min
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 missio...
Apr 23, 2025•24 min
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...
Apr 16, 2025•42 min
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 b...
Apr 09, 2025•21 min
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 contractor...
Apr 02, 2025•23 min
An experienced operational leader with a proven track record in the horticulture and arboriculture industries, I am passionate about plants, trees, and fostering growth—both for nature and the people I work with. Over the years, I have developed expertise in team building, negotiation, budgeting, plant identification, and operations management, all of which have contributed to my success in leading diverse teams. My leadership is centered around creating collaborative, high-performing environmen...
Mar 26, 2025•20 min
Michael Ding, a Stanford-trained computer science and AI researcher, founded Bobyard to tackle critical challenges in the landscape construction industry. During his time in school, Michael identified a unique opportunity to bridge the gap between cutting-edge technology and one of the most essential yet overlooked sectors in construction. Driven by his vision, he decided to drop out of Stanford to found Bobyard, bringing together a world-class team of AI engineers and industry veterans. Togethe...
Mar 19, 2025•22 min
James Lawrence, at just 25 years old, has successfully grown his business from the ground up, achieving remarkable growth over the past four years. His approach to leadership emphasizes building strong systems and processes, but above all, fostering a culture where people come first. For James, the most fulfilling aspect of his work is witnessing his team members grow within the company, accomplishing goals they once considered out of reach — both personally and for their families. With a clear ...
Mar 12, 2025•18 min
Norman Ripper is a dedicated entrepreneur and former military professional with a background in Chinese Mandarin. After serving six years in the military, Norman returned to Florida and founded Helping Hand Lawn Care in 2003. Over the past two decades, he has grown the company from a door-to-door residential mowing service into a thriving business with 83 employees, achieving significant growth in the last six years. In 2024, Norman marked a major milestone with the acquisition of Protex, a loca...
Mar 05, 2025•23 min
Brian Hamilton is one of America’s most successful entrepreneurs and a leading expert on entrepreneurship. He is the founder of Sageworks, America’s first fintech company, which helped millions of business owners translate complex financial information. The company was sold in 2018 to a leading private equity firm and now operates as "Abrigo." In 2021, Brian invested in LiveSwitch and expanded its operations in the United States. Brian is also founder of Inmates to Entrepreneurs, an internationa...
Feb 26, 2025•25 min
Chris Ryon Chris Ryon has been dedicated to the service industry since the age of 15. Growing up around Publix Supermarkets alongside his father, he developed a deep love for serving people. He graduated from USC Upstate with a degree in Accounting and has been a "numbers guy" ever since. Chris joined The Budd Group in 2019 as a Regional Field Accountant in the janitorial division for the South Carolina region. In 2021, with The Budd Group’s increased investment in the landscape division to supp...
Feb 19, 2025•26 min
Jenny Girard is currently an Implementation Specialist with BOSS Software at The Integra Group, a business solutions company dedicated to serving the green and snow industries. In this role, Jenny leverages her extensive industry expertise to onboard new clients, optimizing their operations and improving their efficiency through BOSS's innovative software solutions. Her commitment to driving growth and operational excellence is complemented by her pursuit of an MBA to enhance her business skills...
Feb 12, 2025•31 min
Matt Bradbury is the founder and managing principal of Business Acquisition & Merger Associates (BAMA), a boutique M&A advisory firm he established 20 years ago after a successful 15-year career in multi-unit start-ups, turnarounds, mergers and acquisitions, and operations. Under his leadership, BAMA has grown into a respected firm, facilitating the sale of 10-12 companies annually, each generating $1M to $15M in EBITDA. With a track record spanning more than 215 transactions and $1.8 bi...
Feb 05, 2025•26 min
Brett Stoehr is a Vice President at Unity Partners, a lower middle market private equity firm that is focused on people-based services. Brett focuses on investing in and scaling residential, commercial, and industrial services businesses. Prior to Unity, Brett served on the investment team at CenterOak Partners. He began his career in investment banking at Piper Sandler, where he worked with business owners and private equity firms on mergers, acquisitions, and IPOs. He's completed over 50 trans...
Jan 29, 2025•24 min
David Koehn David Koehn is the founder and president of Koehn Outdoor, formerly DM Koehn Landscaping, Inc. David learned the construction and green industry at an early age by working with his father Douglas W. Koehn at his Class A Contracting business in Franklin, VA. After receiving a 2-year degree in industrial technology from a local community college, David moved from Franklin, VA to Jacksonville, FL in 2001 and started DM Koehn Landscaping in 2004, when he was only 24 years old. In its hum...
Jan 22, 2025•1 hr 18 min
Jeff Domenick is a well-respected and experienced leader in the landscape industry, with a career spanning over 25 years. Jeff’s leadership and industry experience have been instrumental in the acquisition, integration, and assimilation of six market-leading companies to establish KeyServ’s platform. Before founding KeyServ Company, Jeff led the Mountain West Division of SiteOne Landscape Supply, where he transformed the region with the acquisition and integration of eleven family-owned companie...
Jan 15, 2025•24 min
Dana is a Managing Partner at Verde Equity Partners, a lower middle market private equity group that is focused on the landscape industry. Dana is experienced owner or operator in property adjacent businesses, including General Manager (2020-2022) for Goettl Air Conditioning and Plumbing (acquired by Cortec in 2021), prior owner of Cricket Lawn Care, which maintained sites for the City of Orange, churches and schools, commercial and residential accounts throughout Los Angeles and Orange Counties...
Jan 08, 2025•39 min
Steve Steele, Steele Dynamic Services, LLC., joined the Wilson team in July 2020. Formerly Vice President of Business Systems for Heartland, LLC, a private equity financed holding company that acquired Keesen Landscape Management in November 2016, Steve has deep expertise in corporate finance and administration, including mergers and acquisitions, performance improvement, business process redesign, technology implementation, and change management. Steve brings a personalized approach and collabo...
Dec 18, 2024•28 min
Mark Tipton Mark Tipton, founder, and CEO of Aspire, has led the company to its position as a true, end-to-end business partner that uniquely leverages software, services, and education to transform the way field service businesses operate, empowering greater performance and profitability. Mark’s relentless drive to create innovative solutions that address customer needs, promote industry best practices, and resolve persistent challenges has guided Aspire’s strategic initiatives. As a service-or...
Dec 11, 2024•35 min
Jonathan Mond, an accomplished international speaker and coach has invested countless hours addressing audiences and collaborating with teams. His focus is sparking strategic discussions about the profound impact of small improvements, whether it's just 1% or a single day's enhancement. This approach acts as a catalyst, unlocking profitability and propelling businesses toward their full potential. Drawing from over five years of experience as a Scaling Up Certified Coach, Jonathan brings an infe...
Dec 04, 2024•39 min
Ryan Malone is a second-generation landscape professional and the General Manager of Malone's Landscape Management. Growing up immersed in the green industry, Ryan gained hands-on experience in all aspects of the business, from working on crews to managing nursery operations. After playing collegiate baseball, Ryan returned to lead the maintenance company, bringing a fresh perspective and energy to the team. Under his leadership, Malone's Landscape Management has earned a spot on the Inc. 5000 l...
Nov 27, 2024•25 min
