Delaware Boosts Industry Professionalism with Mentoring Program

The Delaware Nursery & Landscape Association (DNLA) and University of Delaware Cooperative Extension are getting a new program off the ground to help boost professionalism and industry knowledge among young business owners in their state. A new mentoring program is pairing retired and semi-retired green industry business professionals with lawn and landscape start-ups to get them going in the right direction.

“The DNLA is a very involved organization within the community in terms of hosting public events, offering education about new plants and techniques, and really trying to stay a step ahead to always educate our members and non-members to raise the bar in the industry,” says Val Budischak, executive director of the association. “We’ve worked very closely with the cooperative extension in the past for a lot of our programs and this new mentoring opportunity was something we felt was worth giving some seed money to get it off the ground.”

DNLA has provided the cooperative extension with a grant of $3,000 to kick-start the mentoring program and get the word out to potential mentors and participants in the state and surrounding area. Extension Agent Gordon Johnson masterminded the new program for the state’s horticulture industry. “This really isn’t a brand new brainstorm,” Johnson tells Lawn & Landscape. “For instance, there are organizations like the Service Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE) have been around for years with the same kind of goal in the business world. As we looked at the green industry, it was becoming evident that in Delaware and other growing areas, we have a lot of start-up horticultural firms in lawn care, maintenance, installation and other areas, who are facing the challenges that all new businesses face. This mentoring program was one avenue we felt would be an effective way to help those new firms develop their professionalism and improve their chances of success in business.”

The program, Johnson explains, is set up to pair industry newcomers with industry veterans for at least two half-day sessions over the course of six months. During those meetings, mentors would work with their younger counterparts to help them develop a business plan for their new company and educate them on the pitfalls and challenges they faced when they were in business. “They’ll be looking at where the business is now, where they want to go and how they want to get there,” Johnson says. “By the end of the program, they should be able to get a business plan down on paper – that’s the goal.”

Johnson notes that mentors and those they’re counseling may continue working together after the six-month period ends. During the business planning period, though, the discussion won’t get heavy into financials, securing loans, refining business organization, etc. “If they really want to get into that, we have access to other resources at the extension and the small business center that can help them out,” he says.

Right now, the program has identified eight mentors and a handful of businesses to participate, though Johnson says a number of business owners contacted the extension yesterday for more information. The goal for the pilot phase of the program is to pair 10 mentors with 20 businesses. Its success will depend on a couple of factors.

“The first indication of a successful program is that we meet the goals we’ve set for the number of mentors and clients for the pilot program,” Johnson says. “From there, the second indication would be how many clients have completed their basic business plan at the end of the time frame. Ideally, if we were doing an evaluation 5 years down the road, we’d like to take note of how many of those businesses are still in business and thriving. Right now, though, we’re really just eager to get the program off the ground to provide the education that many small business owners, regardless of the industry, really need.”

Right now, the Delaware Nursery & Landscape Association and Cooperative Extension’s mentoring program is being geared toward business owners within Delaware, though individuals in nearby areas of Maryland or Pennsylvania also are welcome. Budischak notes that participants don’t have to be DNLA members, though she and Johnson agree that a boost in membership would be a welcome result of the mentoring program. For additional information on how to get involved in the mentoring program, contact Gordon Johnson or Jennifer Jones at the extension office by calling 302/730-4000.