As we prepare to turn the page on the 116th Congress and welcome in the 117th Congress in January, a shot across the bow of the green industry was made this summer. In August, Senator Tom Udall (D-NM) and Representative Joe Neguse (D-CO) in the House introduced the Protect America’s Children from Toxic Pesticides Act of 2020 (H.R. 7940, S. 4406) which undermines 70 years of regulatory advancement based on best available science. H.R. 7940/ S. 4406 would drastically alter the way pesticides are regulated in the U.S. and would dismantle the Federal Insecticide Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) as we know it today. Some of the most onerous provisions proposed in this legislation include:

• Roll-back pesticide preemption and allow local communities to enact pesticide restrictions and bans even if the actions preempted by state law.
• Immediately ban large categories of pesticides including:

• Organophosphates;
• Neonicotinoids;
• Paraquat; and
• Any product banned or otherwise prohibited by the European Union, 1 or more countries in the European Union, or Canada until EPA completes a thorough scientific review of the product.
• Prohibit EPA from considering economic costs and product benefits in its registration decisions.
• Define a dangerous pesticide as an active ingredient or pesticide product that may:
• Be carcinogenic;
• Be acutely toxic;
• Be an endocrine disruptor;
• Cause harm to a pregnant woman or a fetus; or
• Cause neurological or developmental harm.
• Blindly follow foreign regulatory process and require the suspension and review of pesticides deemed unsafe by Canada and the European Union which do not follow the FIFRA standards.
• Create a petition process to enable individual citizens to petition the EPA to identify dangerous pesticides. EPA must review citizen petitions and determine within 90 days if the pesticide meets the definition of a dangerous pesticide. If EPA fails to make a determination within 90 days, the pesticide will automatically be deemed a dangerous pesticide.

While it is unlikely this bill will move in this Congress, we must strongly oppose this bill now and use this time to educate lawmakers. Whether this bill comes back verbatim in the next Congress or several smaller bills are introduced representing certain aspects of this bill, or if we have a change in the Administration, will a Democratic controlled EPA set out to amend long standing FIFRA regulations? It is unclear how these attacks will come but it is certain that they will be coming. As an industry we need to be ready for an escalation of pesticide policy debates at the federal level in the next few years.

In September, NALP joined hundreds of national and state associations in supporting a letter that was sent to Congress in opposition of the anti-pesticide legislation. The green industry was very well represented on this letter with our partner groups representing the agriculture industry. Additionally, NALP began grassroots efforts to reinforce the message that this sort of drastic and misinformed anti-pesticide legislation is not acceptable.

The landscape industry, as part of the green industry, will need to work together in the coming months and years to educate new legislators and regulators at the federal level about what the landscape industry does to improve our environment and enrich the lives of our fellow citizens through healthy green spaces. We will also need to explain the professionalism of our industry and how we responsibly use EPA approved products while defending and preserving the FIFRA process.

Editor’s note: This article was written on Oct. 5, 2020. You can contact Bray at andrew@landscapeprofessionals.org for the most current information.

Mike Bogan admits he’s a creature of habit and enjoys his routine. Even when he’s on the road, he tries to keep things static. “I try to wake up, exercise and eat the same at the same times,” says the CEO of LandCare, which ranks 10th on Lawn & Landscape’s 2020 Top 100 list.

But that may not have always been the case, especially as a father raising young kids with his wife Rebecca, a landscape architect. “Our kids are grown and on their own, so life has evolved in the last five years and is very different than it looked as we raised our family,” the San Diego resident says. Here’s Bogan’s average day.

I wake up at 5 a.m. I’m happiest when I have 8 hours of sleep, so I try to in bed by 9 p.m.

For the first several months of COVID-19, I immediately checked my phone – which is a direct contradiction to the way I want to start my day. Living on the West Coast, areas of the company have already been at it for a few hours, so news about people’s safety was available and important to me.

Now, I am back to my preferred habit, which is to hold off on external information until 7 a.m. So, I start my day with 10-15 minutes of stretching, during which I try to be grateful for the blessings I have in life to start my mind in a positive place. I exercise from 5:30 to 6:30, alternating running with weight training.

I live near the beach, so when the tides are right, I’ll do 6 miles along the Torrey Pines shoreline. This gives me a connection with nature, a chance to watch the sunrise and often fellowship with a friend. Other days, its CrossFit with a group I joined a few years ago.

Then, I return home, fix my breakfast and pack my lunch for the day and read the news while I eat and have coffee. Usually, it’s toast with avocado and egg whites or tortillas, egg whites and Soyrizo.

I’m on my way to the office at 7:30. I only have an 8-10-minute drive to the office, so I usually ride in silence while I think about the day’s priorities.

I’m in at 7:45 and I’ll greet my team members while I make a cup of coffee, then take 10-15 minutes to organize my objectives for the day – usually with a “to do” list – before opening my computer and checking email.

Including calls and video chats, I have between three and six meetings – sometimes more. Most of my day is interacting with others, not working independently.

When others are working at the office (pre-COVID-19) we eat together at noon. Most of us bring our lunch. For me, it’s usually leftovers from the night before. My wife is an amazing cook and prepares most of our dinners, so it’s always something healthy and tasty.

Post-lunch, I’m responding to email and other inbound requests. I know the east half of the company is wrapping up soon, so I try to get back on issues for those who are on eastern time.

I usually work until about 6:30. I really like the last hours of the day. The office gets quiet, there are no interruptions and I can be very focused on my objectives.

I try to stop looking at work-related items when I leave the office. Unless there is a current crisis, I attempt to keep work between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m.

On weekends, I’ll often put in a couple of hours from home on Saturday and Sunday, but there are plenty of days when I don’t. I try not to email people as I know it interrupts their weekend, so I’ll cue mail up to send on Monday morning.

I also listen to a lot of podcasts while I do chores or exercise on the weekend, which can be professionally enriching, and I’ll be anxious to put those ideas into action the next week. My top three are Freakonomics by Stephen Dubner, This American Life by Ira Glass and Revisionist History by Malcolm Gladwell.

Eric Berg says that after using a robotic mower for his own yard, he quickly decided to invest in the technology.

“I have three little kids at home. And there was never a good time to cut my lawn…so, my lawn never looked good,” says the owner of EMBerg Ventures in Milwaukee, Wis. “It saves me time, it saves me money, it’s environmentally-friendly and cost effective. It really checks all the boxes from a consumer standpoint, which led me to the technology as a consumer and as an entrepreneur as well.”

Berg signed with Robin Autopilot in December 2018 and launched in the spring of 2019. Prior to investing in robotic mowers, Berg had no experience in the green industry.

“The majority of my clients pay us a weekly fee, and we install and maintain a robotic mower,” Berg says. “We will also sell them outright and install them, but the real niche is using it as a service – using the technology to maintain the lawn without someone on a gas-powered mower showing up every seven to 10 days.”

Nathan Laughlin, owner of Robo Lawn Salon in Edmond, Okla., has offered robotic mowing since 2018.

When we brought the robotic mower over, their eyes kind of lit up with excitement for everything it could do.” Emma Trizzino, general manager, Greenspace Associates

“I was looking for something where the business model would be residual,” he says. “With the way I do the lawn mowers, people essentially lease them from me, so it’s very residual.”

Laughlin says offering robotic mowing services is very adaptable.

“My model is whatever makes the customer happy,” he says. “If they want to buy it outright, I’ll sell it outright; if they want to buy it over the course of time, I’ll finance it to them; if they want to lease it, I’ll lease it to them. People appreciate that I’m really flexible in that aspect.”

Laughlin and Berg say that their clients appreciate the hands-off and worry-free approach of robotic mowing.

“You can be 100 miles away and it is still doing its job,” Berg says.

While the robots are mowing the customers’ yards daily at times, Laughlin says he offers other services to his customers to take care of the finishing touches.

“It’s really however the customer wants to do it,” he says. “Most of my customers do their own, but I offer edging and trimming. I do it all myself.”

Laughlin says the price of his service is comparable to other landscaping or even the cost of a ride-on mower in the long-run.

“I usually charge a one-time install fee and install it and then they’re typically paying March through October on the robot if they’re leasing it,” he says. “The monthly fee depends on the size of the yard, the kind of robot and the services they want. I start out at about $79 or $89 a month. And that’s just for the robot…it also includes the monitoring and maintenance of it.”

Berg says that by owning the mowers and leasing them out, he’s able to repurpose them if need be.

“If that client stops service or moves, I will recover the mower and re-deploy it at another client’s property,” he says.

For Greenspace Associates in Bettendorf, Iowa, crews use robotic mowers in a commercial setting rather than residential, says Emma Trizzino, general manager.

The company first used them three years ago, and Trizzino says the limited maintenance and prep work for the mowers has been nice.

“You just come in and plug the remote in overnight, so it’s ready the next day,” she says. “Other than that, you’re good to go.”

SAFETY FIRST.

Trizzino says that the crews can safely and effectively use the robotic mowers on tough landscapes including dikes, cliffs and steep hills.

“It’s made the work a lot safer and a lot more efficient,” she says. “It’s been a great asset to our company. One of our larger maintenance contracts has a lot of steep dikes and it was taking six guys all week to string trim it safely and cut down the weeds. So, we looked into getting a robotic mower. It’s cut it down (from) six guys all week to now one guy operating the mower.”

Trizzino says that before making the switch to robotic mowers, the terrain was known to cause problems for crews.

“Before you always had to worry about someone rolling an ankle or walking through the tall weeds string trimming and not knowing what they’re stepping on,” she says. “Now you’ve got a guy who is standing back a ways and can just control the mower with a remote control and not have to worry about those dikes and live animals.”

For now, Greenspace crews are only using the mowers at one site, but Trizzino says the property owners are very impressed with the quality of cut and safety measures.

“They are big on safety,” she says. “That’s one of their top priorities. So, if it rained or anything like that, we were never allowed on the dikes to mow because they’d be too slippery. When we brought the robotic mower over, their eyes kind of lit up with excitement for everything it could do.”

Trizzino says having the robotic mowers has even helped the company through a shortage of labor.

“I’m sure every landscaping company has labor shortage issues with finding the right guys and getting a number of employees to show up every day, so reducing our need for more employees to control and maintain these dikes has been nice,” she says.

“As people learn about the technology and the cost structures for these mowers, and the time savings, I think people with larger yards will absolutely go this way. I truly think it will change the lawn care industry totally.” Eric Berg, owner, EMBerg Ventures

HANDLING HICCUPS.

While there are plenty of advantages to robotic mowers, Laughlin says he has had to deal with managing expectations.

“It’s not a perfect fit for everybody,” he says of customers who’ve cancelled services. “They wanted it to be 100% hands off. And often times the mower gets stuck, or you have to make sure it isn’t stuck under your vehicle or something like that. Some people just don’t want to hassle with it.”

Laughlin says his limited knowledge of the mower’s capabilities early on caused him to lose a few clients. He explains that when a mower is installed, a wire is run around the perimeter of the property. If there is anything in the middle of the yard that the mower should avoid, those are called islands and wire is ran around them as well.

“I had a customer who ended up with 23 islands…and his yard was over an acre and a quarter,” he says. “I had two robots on his yard and after two or three months of trying to get the two robots to mow his yard, he had to call it quits. The robots really couldn’t keep up.”

Berg adds that some customers are hesitant to make the switch because they are so used to traditional landscaping.

“There’s definitely a learning curve,” he says. “We’re the same, yet we’re different. We do the same thing as a traditional lawn care provider, but we just use a totally different technology to do it. It’s picking up but there has been a learning curve.”

Laughlin says he feels suspicion around the mowers has also kept them from gaining more momentum.

“I think there’s a large gap in the awareness. People don’t really know much about these mowers and are skeptical when they find out about them,” he says.

FITTED FOR THE FUTURE.

As people learn more about them and see more in their neighborhoods, Berg thinks more people will come around.

“To me it’s not a question of ‘if’ but ‘when,’” he says. “As people learn about the technology and the cost structures for these mowers, and the time savings, I think people with larger yards will absolutely go this way. I truly think it will change the lawn care industry totally.”

Currently, Berg and Laughlin say their clients are tech savvy individuals who enjoy testing out the latest trends and gadgets.

“I do think a lot of our customers are early adopters,” Berg says. “They have a hybrid vehicle, or electric vehicle, already. They are tech-forward people who don’t necessarily do things the way they’ve always been done. As we see people get more used to it and acquainted with the technology, I think we’ll see more people sign on.”

Laughlin says he too thinks robotic mowers will continue to make their way into the industry slowly, but surely.

“I think a lot of the yard maintenance companies will start transitioning to this,” he says. “Because long-term, it’s a huge money saver.”

It’s been a crazy year to say the least. Not only was the industry hampered by another low-snow, low-event winter, but just past the mid-winter point, we experienced the onslaught of a global pandemic that impacted every business in our economy.

As commercial and retail businesses furloughed workers and closed offices and manufacturing plants, many of you were concerned that, even if it did begin snowing again, would your services be needed? Or worse, would your clients have the means to continue paying for services? The implications of an economic and financial domino effect were appalling.

While it’s fair to say no one was left unscathed by COVID-19’s impact, the 2020 State of the Industry data seems to indicate that the industry did persevere, and snow and ice management contractors – perhaps through a combination of thoughtful preplanning and good luck – managed to keep their heads above water and make it through to more solid footing this past spring.

Here are some of the highlights from this year’s report. According to the research data, more than a third of snow pros reported an increase in their gross revenues last winter over the previous season, and on average, contractors saw around $1.5 million to $1.7 million in gross revenues generated primarily from commercial contracts (62% of the overall average portfolio). Profit margins last winter hovered around the 50% mark for snow plowing (41% profit margin) and ice mitigation/management (47 percent).The following pages go into further detail on Winter 2019-20’s impact on the average contractors’ snow and ice management operations. And keep an eye out for additional in-depth reporting on the State of the Industry data findings in upcoming editions of the Snow Magazine Enewsletter.