Mind on a million

It took a while for Gabe Lobato to fully embrace being a landscaper. After all, he made good money as an aviation instructor, but after 9/11, the industry suffered a lot of layoffs. Unsatisfied at the radio job he took after his aviation job, Lobato started to think about starting a landscaping company.

After about 50 trips to Home Depot getting guidance from employees there on a landscaping project in for his backyard, he and his wife started to talk about starting a landscaping company. He wondered how many people wanted their yard landscaped but didn’t know how. With a baby on the way, he was confident the move would be a career in which he could support his expanding family.

“The idea to start a business that could meet our household income and my wife would have the option to not go back to work after our first daughter was born was the greatest drive in the beginning to want to start our business.”

In 2005, he made the leap by starting La Cholla Landscaping just outside of Tucson, Arizona, and 14 years later he runs a $750,000-company with 12 employees. 

Now, Lobato wants to groom someone to take over his duties and eventually sell the company in five to seven years, but break a $1 million in revenue before then.

To help achieve those goals, he wants to add a fourth maintenance team and a second construction team, and improve his design/build closer rate and increase demand for maintenance jobs.