‘Good Old Boys Club’ Allows Girls

When asked for information about the number of women in the landscape industry, Associated Landscape Contractors of America (ALCA) Public Relations Manager Bonnie Van Fleet said, "Women are so integrated in the association and the field, there’s no reason to figure out those statistics." Van Fleet’s feelings are emulated throughout most of the country as an increasing number of women have joined the field as laborers, technicians, support staff and company owners. Landscaping is no longer home to the "Good Old Boys Club" as it once was and is no longer considered a non-traditional occupation for women.

THE NON-ISSUE. Cindy Peterson, part owner/vice president of sales of St. Paul, Minn.-based McCaren Designs Inc., is pleased with the state of the industry for females. "I’d love to say it’s a non-issue," she said, referring to gender differences in the industry. Peterson, who holds the distinction of being the first female president of ALCA, said the reasons for choosing to work in the landscaping industry are the same among men and women. "It’s their love of plants or that they want to run their own business and make an impact," she said. "Women weren’t interested in this business early on, but when they showed the interest and wanted to be in the industry, the doors were open to them."

Those doors opened for Peterson 18 years ago when she joined McCaren Designs, a mostly interior company with design, installation and maintenance services for a base of more than 200 residential and commercial clients. The company does approximately $3 million in business annually with a predominantly female workforce for interior and a few women in the exterior division. With an education base on the female-dominated interior side, Peterson quickly moved up the corporate ladder without noticing gender barriers. "Since I came in from the interior side, and it was all women, there were no limits," she said. "Then when I started to meet all of the exterior folks, it was such an easy transition that I never felt there were any barriers."

Even becoming president of ALCA posed no gender problems for Peterson, especially with past ALCA presidents supporting her the whole way. "I never felt that there were any limitations to where I could go and how I could serve in the industry," she said about becoming the organization’s first female president.

Audrie Seeley, owner of Audrie Seeley & Company Landscaping in Kansas City, Mo., does not find limitations or gender barriers anymore either. "Men listen to women finally," she said with a chuckle. Seeley has been in the industry for 11 years, starting as a landscape designer at another company. In 1990, she decided to start her own company, which began in her basement with her two sons as laborers and has grown to a 3.5-acre facility with more than 50 employees. "I just wanted to operate a company the way I thought it should be run and train people the way I saw fit," she said. She now offers landscape, irrigation and maintenance services for residential and commercial customers and also operates a garden center. Her first year in business resulted in approximately $300,000 in sales, and she now totals more than $4 million a year.

Seeley noted that she sees a growing number of women owning businesses in her area. "It seems like 50 or more percent of the owners of small businesses are women," she said. She believes this trend started about 10 years ago in Kansas City, however, she has noticed that most of the new landscape companies are being started by men and oftentimes result from them learning the work at another company and spinning-off on their own. In fact, she said, "I’ve trained a few people to start their own companies."

Seeley has a predominantly female sales force and also has several women in her seasonal flower department. On the equipment-related and physical labor side, her workforce is mostly male. "It’s really hard to get a female who can lift trees and run the equipment," she explained. However, the diversity in the workforce helps her company because she believes that female customers like to deal with women on landscaping and male customers like to deal with men on construction and more technical work. "You find that women don’t get questioned about making decisions on plants, and men don’t get questioned about making decisions on drainage," she explained.

ADVANTAGES FOR WOMEN. "I see being female as a major advantage," said Laurie Broccolo, owner of Rochester, N.Y.-based Broccolo Tree & Lawn Care. "And that is really part of the reason our business has absolutely flourished." Among the 25 year-round staffers, mostly every office employee is female, as is half of the staff in field. Broccolo said that males are outnumbered especially in the winter, while the company is more gender-balanced in the summer with additional male seasonal laborers.

However, Broccolo emphasized that she is not gender-biased in her hiring. The female-dominated staff is just a function of the company’s lawn and plant care focus, which requires a great deal of customer communication. "Most of the customers in general feel more comfortable with females on their properties," said Broccolo. "The asset that women bring to the field is the detail-oriented and thorough customer communication skills."

Broccolo’s goal for 2000 is $2 million in sales for her client base of about 2,500 mainly residential customers. This volume of business has grown by leaps and bounds since her start in 1990, even without advertising her services. She has relied on word-of-mouth for the growth of her business, whether it’s neighbors telling friends to use her company, referrals from non-competing landscape construction companies or being featured in the local media as a successful female-owned and operated business.

Peterson from McCaren Designs sees women’s abilities and personalities as a major advantage to joining the field. "I think landscapes can be very creative. With the detail mind that a lot of women have, we can create and maintain those spaces very well," she said. "We also sell in a different manner. I’ll make more references to how the landscape is going to look and how the people are going to feel because I’m tuned into more of those emotional things."

Another advantage for women is the government’s offering of certain opportunities for women in business, including a Woman-owned Business Enterprise (WBE) certification. To be eligible for WBE certification, a business must be 51 percent or more female-owned. Seeley & Company is a registered WBE, which entitles the company to be considered in any project funded by the city, state or county governments. The law states that a percentage of the project must be contracted to minority-owned businesses, such as WBEs. When Seeley got started, her business was the only WBE in the Kansas City area landscape industry, which helped her get more jobs and prove her abilities as a landscape professional.

OBSTACLES FOR WOMEN. Unlike the women above, Lori Spielman, owner of Lori Spielman Landscaping Inc. in Ellington, Conn., still runs into the gender biases that have plagued many non-traditional occupations. "You still have the ‘Good Old Boys Club,’ but I run into it mostly on the large commercial jobs. Anytime you have a union involved, you run into it," she explained. "Being female, [the men] think you don’t know what you’re doing or know anything about equipment, when actually I can run circles around these guys."

Spielman said that although this can be a problem, she maintains a strong attitude and a persistent sales strategy to overcome the barriers. She recalled an incident about a male golf course owner who said he didn’t hire women when she solicited him for business. She persisted with this man for about a year and finally got the job. "Now he’s my best friend," she said, "and to this day still tells people that story."

Spielman started out doing lawn installations herself in 1984 because of her love of the outdoors and interest in grass and equipment. Spielman's company now employs about 12 men and five women, including herself, and does close to $1 million a year in residential and commercial installation and maintenance. Spielman’s education in the industry includes vocational agriculture training and several courses and seminars attended through her involvement in the Connecticut Nurserymen’s Association, Golf Course Superintendents Association of America, Connecticut Parks Association and others.

Her success hasn’t come easy, and she believes she would be more successful in the business if she was a male. "You’re always proving yourself no matter how many years you’ve been in the business, and it takes a lot above and beyond to get anybody’s recognition compared to a male," she said. "When I come to a job, I have to work extra hard and the clients are extra picky. They’re not sure I can do it." Despite the increased scrutiny, she has managed to prove herself time and again through her work, customer friendliness, well-maintained equipment, uniformed employees and clean company image.

The increased scrutiny of females in the field is actually a welcome intrusion for Broccolo. She was the only woman in the field at her first job, so she was watched. "Customers took more notice because they were checking me out to see whether I could really do the work," she explained. The added scrutiny became an advantage to Broccolo because her efforts and success were even more noticeable. She said, "When I’d go on a property, customers would call and say Laurie was here and thanks for sending her."

The advantages of women joining the growing landscaping industry far outweigh the obstacles, and many women have already figured this out, according to Laurie Saunders, ALCA director of marketing and communication. "Women are very strong in the landscape industry. They’re definitely very strong business people and entrepreneurs. If you look at two landscape companies, one that’s male-run and one that’s female-run, you wouldn’t know the difference," she said.