Blizzard & Bloom: Insights from the Ice and the Green Scene

Building Better Landscape Businesses Through Strategic Supplier Relationships

• Jay Rotonnelli

Share episode

Send us a text

Greg Thistle, Regional Vice President at SiteOne, brings 25 years of green industry wisdom to this episode, sharing how a curious 21-year-old evolved into a landscape industry leader. His journey reveals the surprising career trajectories available in landscaping—from entry-level positions to executive leadership—challenging the perception that trades offer limited growth compared to college-track careers.

The conversation delves into what truly drives success in the modern landscape business: meaningful relationships. Greg unpacks SiteOne's "customer first" philosophy, explaining how being friendly, respectful, and solution-oriented transforms business interactions from transactional to relational. "When our customers win, we win," Greg emphasizes, highlighting how this partnership approach has become even more crucial in today's budget-conscious market where customers need tailored solutions rather than one-size-fits-all proposals.

Technology emerges as a critical catalyst for industry evolution. From stone magnets and tree movers that save backs to business management software that elevates professionalism, Greg illustrates how embracing the right tools helps overcome traditional barriers. For an industry where many entrepreneurs lack formal business education, technology now makes sound business decisions possible "without spending 40 hours in a chair." Greg also shares fascinating glimpses into emerging trends, including the shift toward maintenance-friendly landscapes featuring natives and automation, and SiteOne's community outreach efforts that create pathways for future generations. His advice to newcomers? "Be curious about what's out there"—because finding the right position makes this industry "so much fun and rewarding."

Tune in to discover how mentorship, customer experience excellence, and strategic technology adoption are transforming the landscape industry into a field ripe with opportunity. Whether you're a seasoned pro or considering a green industry career, Greg's insights will change how you view the business of creating and maintaining beautiful outdoor spaces.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to Blizzard and Bloom, the podcast where we navigate the storms and celebrate the triumphs in business and entrepreneurship. Join us as we dive into stories, insights and strategies from top professionals to help you thrive in today's evolving landscape. And now here is your host, jay Rotinelli. Here is your host, jay.

Speaker 2:

Rotinelli. Guests, listeners. Welcome to another episode of Blizzard Bloom. Last episode we had the opportunity to talk to Angelique Robb with Synced In Live offered some insight on how we work together or how we bring the landscape services business together with the outdoor solutions providers. So hope you had a chance to listen to that. If not, be sure to catch that. That was a great episode. Today I'm lucky enough to have Greg Thistle from SiteOne Greg's the regional vice president for SiteOne Been a really great ally, channel partner and friend to us here at Piscataqua Landscaping so morning. Greg, thank you for taking the time to jump on with us.

Speaker 3:

No, thank you for having me and looking forward to it. I like to talk about landscaping.

Speaker 2:

Can you just give us a little bit of background of kind of how you started in the industry and you know kind of your traversed path to where you are now?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah. So 25 years ago I started with a company called Century Rain Aid in Woburn Mass. I came, I moved up to new England and applied for a position and I had done. I was in the FFA and agriculture and things in high school and ran a feed store in high school and knew a little bit about outdoor stuff but applied for this job and liked what it sounded like and then I've been here ever since through that. Century Rain Aid was purchased by John Deere, which was the origination of John Deere Landscapes, and then we were going to go public. We couldn't go public with the John Deere name so we had to change the name to SiteOne and I've been through so I was acquired at one point and I've been through a lot of acquisitions throughout my 25 years here at the company and they've given me a lot of opportunities to grow and learn and it's been a fun experience and I think everybody talks about.

Speaker 3:

Once you get into the landscape business you don't get out and I think a lot of that is just because of the people you work with. I mean, who wants to go work in retail or go work in a high stress office environment or you know when, the people we work with. They're all you know. Most are so wonderful. I have relationships, mentors that I have, you know, leaned on over the 25 years that, just out of the goodness of their heart, have helped me through growing from a 21 year old kid to who knew nothing, learning a little bit about landscape.

Speaker 2:

That's awesome. That's a cool career path and you know you speak about some of the mentors and things like that that you've had throughout the years. I'll jump ahead a little bit here. And that really resonates with me because I think about. You know where I came from and how I started and you know doesn't happen by accident but happens intentional and we all have had a chance to learn some way somehow in this industry.

Speaker 2:

And you know I talked to our teams here at Piscataqua about it and you know everybody started somewhere and when we talk about having those mentors, business coaches, things of that nature, you really start to reflect on different milestones throughout your career and how you've worked through those and gotten to that point. So that's pretty cool. So it brings up. You know, one of the subjects we talk about all the time is how do you take some of the younger folks that maybe have an interest in the landscape business or you know, the outdoor business, irrigation, whatever it might be, any one of those service sectors and talk to them about what the opportunities are when you see the likes of yourself or myself, there's quite a career ladder there.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, I think first you've got to paint the picture that they understand that the sky's the limit in this industry. You know we have some great stories. My boss, the president of SiteOne, was a CSSR customer sales and service rep when he started just out of college and he has moved from there to. He drove and counter guy and sales guy and just moved through the business. And then we have kind of these feeder companies across New England which is fun to talk about, especially on the irrigation side, especially on the irrigation side. You know how many people worked for two or three of these career that helps you build a family, build a life, is, I think, the first part. They've got to understand that it's possible Because I think a lot of society over the last 20, 30 years have talked about the lack of opportunity in trades or lack of opportunity in a blue-collar career versus going to school and going that path, going to college, secondary education and going that path.

Speaker 3:

So, and then the second part of it. So paint the picture first I think is important, tell the success stories of those that have come before you. And then the second one is there's some people that have gone through Stockbridge and that is a good idea of what it takes to be successful in our industry. For 90% of us, we didn't go through there, and there is no playbook we get that says, hey, here's how you run a landscape business, or here's how you run a maintenance crew, or here's how you install a landscape planning.

Speaker 3:

So really it's about getting the right people, which is first. So hungry, humble and smart is what we always talk about. You want people that are hungry, humble and smart and that'll help the process throughout the whole the whole, because if you've ever taught somebody who didn't want to hear what you have to say, it's like pulling teeth and eventually the mentor will quit and just stop investing time in that person. But if they're humble and they're hungry, it's fun to teach people what you know or what you've been through, or show them ways that they don't fail but they succeed. So being curious to what others have done or what has led them to where they are is important, and then we need to make sure we are mentoring people. There is no other way to get the information to, especially our younger group, without us taking the lead and showing them how to do it and bringing them along and, you know, understanding the differences in their experiences versus ours and taking ownership of that.

Speaker 2:

You've developed quite a great team I need to share with you and the audience. Your team here in the Northeast has really been an exceptional partner for us at Piscataqua Landscaping and I think about some of these folks, without saying names. These folks always have these positive things to say and they've started somewhere, most of them in the green industry, and have then moved into that side of the business where you know being the manufacturer or the vendor supplying the materials. And I hear a lot about what SiteOne does with the training and it's not only about sales. But they talk about customer experience and I know at Piscataqua the customer experience is very important to us and I share that with your reps too, when we see them in the different markets that Piscataqua is in now and I just explain to them like the importance of those great partnerships and writing a great experience. Can you talk to us about some of what maybe some of your policies or your thought process is on that customer experience level?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, we first want to hire the right people or develop the right people, and that comes from there what we call DNA, and there's several attributes that go into that. There's seven of them that we talk about Always safe. We can't invest time and energy into somebody who doesn't take their safety or the safety of the people around them for granted or they act in ways that is kind of too cool to wear a safety vest. You can't see me on camera, but I'm grabbing my safety vest back here and that's kind of a non-negotiable right. So the right people and their talent they're team oriented. They want to work as part of a team. They are continuously improving. They never get to a point where they feel like they have made it and they don't win. You know they want to constantly work for what, look for ways to get better for them, for their team, to bring someone else along with them and to be a mentor and teach people what they've learned already. So we look for the right person first and then we spend a lot of time about that, spending time around the customer experience. You know it's I don't want to say it's easy, but there are a lot of avenues where we can learn about the industry. There's publications, there's videos, there's supply partners that come in and talk to us about products. There's formal training, classroom training that we offer throughout the season and a lot of times in the winter. There's a lot of ways to get technical training. So we spend a lot of time on the customer experience side and we call it customer first.

Speaker 3:

So being friendly, you need to be friendly. You know, my mother always told me no one cares how you're feeling, don't put that on them. You know you talk to your family and friends about that, but the people around you don't go out there on a bad day and spread it across. So making sure that you are friendly to the people that walk in there I mean we see customers all day that are, you know, neck deep. They were just in a hole trying to fix an irrigation leak, or they were mowing a lawn and it was wet and they're green. We see it all and they're having a tough time. So being friendly and then asking what can we do for you? How can we solve your problems? Being respectful of them, their time, their thoughts, their experiences, possibilities of when they can and can't get a project done Meeting those demands is important.

Speaker 3:

We don't just offer. This is what we can do. We offer. What do you need us to get done? So, um, and then solve those problems.

Speaker 3:

Have a solution, come up with new solutions. If you see it, that works for one contractor, one one problem in the industry. Spread it out, let people know what's going on. Let people know what is going on out there, because you know, when you think about a landscape business, depending on the size, a lot of times you're with the same five people all day. You don't have the same exposure to a hundred contractors that your supply partner has, and it's our responsibility to share those experiences and learnings and industry stuff. What's going on out there? Do we have disease breakthrough? Do we have product shortages? Right now we're working on spending a lot of time making sure everybody's educated on the tariff impact on our business. Things like that need to be spread across.

Speaker 3:

So solve problems and then thank our customers for doing business with us. We don't make anything special. We're not Microsoft or Apple. We're in the service business. You have a choice and we want to make sure we thank our customers for choosing us to do business with and, as long as we do that, it leads to the rest of the. What you so gracefully said was you know, our guys feel, I mean, I guess the feeling is they want to serve you and if we have the right people and we give them the right tools, they will do a good job serving our customers. And when our customers win, we win, win, which is kind of the goal of life.

Speaker 2:

Well said, it's, um, I'll tell you, it echoes and resonates with me. It echoes across your, your stores and locations. Because you know, one of the things that we talk about all time the solutions, right, we're in the landscape business. We don't. I mean, we take grass and make it shorter, but at the end of the day, what do we really do? We, we're providing solutions, right.

Speaker 2:

So, which leads me to another subject, and that's the fact of the economy right now and a little bit, maybe, apprehension from the end user on what their, you know, disposable income, whether it's there or less of it there now post-COVID. But then also what some of the things they're trying to do and accomplish within a budget and that's been big for our sales team is. You know, it's not a one and done. People aren't just giving. You know, you're not just order taking anymore like COVID, right, you couldn't get the work done fast enough. Just do it, treat me fair, get it done. It's really come back to now of hey, listen, I'm looking to do this. I think it's going to. You know, I was told it's going to be somewhere around this, and that's where, you know, we need to go in and use our expertise and help them provide a solution for a budget that fits them.

Speaker 2:

So I think before that the taste of that from a sales perspective was kind of washed away during COVID, and you and I both know we've been in the industry long enough. It was a false pretense to the economy and to everybody in. How does your team look at it from that perspective? And how do you work as a partnership with the vendors when people are talking about, hey, listen, they want to do this. Do you have any ideas or solutions? Maybe that might help us defer some, you know, maybe minimize the without being too impactful to the end result, to get us within budget. And how does your team work with that, with the contractors?

Speaker 3:

How does the district team work with that, with the contractors? Yeah, yeah, so there's plenty there. First of all, I was a great seller during COVID. I thought I was the best I could sell anything, and you're right. It gave us this false sense of what it felt like to be a seller or what it felt like to solve the customer's problem, because really all we had to do was get product, get it put down and be done. Timelines were thrown out the window. I mean, there was so much that was budgets were highly inflated and there was a lot of artificial, you know, tailwinds during COVID. So now we've got some headwinds and, yeah, budget's one of them. We got to make sure that we hit the number that the end user is looking for. But then we need to ask a lot of questions, and that's really what it comes down to is what is the? How are they going to use the space? What is really important to them? Do they want a fireplace or was it just something cool they saw? But they're really going to sit out in their backyard and do X, y and Z Like.

Speaker 3:

Asking all the questions and spending more time on the sales process, I think, is really where the contractor's attention needs to fall, and then with us it's very similar. We need to ask questions around what is important to this project and then how can we help meet those needs. So a lot of what we're doing now is moving from a natural stone to an MHP product or moving from a 100% of the picture they painted in their head to doing a phased project. So, hey, what needs to be done now? Let's get all the base done, let's get all the site work done, let's get the patio in, but we'll save the fire pit, the sitting wall, the lighting and stuff for next year when we can go back into this project and let's let them live on the patio for a while and then we'll come back.

Speaker 3:

Same thing with you know, plantings is a big one that we spend a lot of time looking for subs. Whether it's we can find a product that would make the contractor and the homeowner very happy, and maybe it's it's a deal that we can cut from somebody, or getting to another, um, another product that will give them the same shading or look that they're looking for at a better price point. So looking for options and really again solving the problems. We don't sell anything, we solve those problems. And as long as we know what those problems are, we can work alongside and partner with the contractors to deliver what the homeowner wants. And when we get in trouble is when we're trying to sell something hey, I got a price for this and I want to sell this and it doesn't work if the stars aren't on it.

Speaker 2:

And that's where it becomes more transactional, right versus relational. And people might think well, in your business or just in the service business, it's transactional, but it's not. I beg to differ on that. I really think it's more relational. What are your thoughts?

Speaker 3:

on that Absolutely. I mean, we do have some transactional business Saturday mornings. A lot of our fertilizer stores are very busy on Saturday mornings. Someone wants to come in and grab a bag of fertilizer and get out of there. That is transactional, but our partnership with contractors is anything but that. There's a lot of things that we're working on the education side of them, their team, how they're selling, access to information, working on things like cash flow and project design and project takeoffs and things like that that are so much more important than what do we need today. It's thinking about a month from now, and two months from now is the only way that we can really partner together and win long term. Long-term, and if we think about it transactionally, we're always going to be chasing something versus trying to solve problems and work together and know what the expectations are of each other.

Speaker 2:

Your team, whether you know, through many acquisitions of SiteOne, whether you know we're going to do business at Milliken Nurseries or what was Dirt Doctors or any of those, or your service centers.

Speaker 2:

I really feel like your team does a great job on talking and educating about maybe some alternatives. And then to your point, substitutions, right, plant material which COVID decimated the planting into the plant industry, and what I mean by that is everybody was buying everything up but, quite frankly, a lot of the stock didn't have time to mature and so now we're short on some of the larger stuff. But again, I think your team does a great job on offering other solutions. And the fact of the matter is, at SiteOne you represent so many different manufacturers and I think that is kind of a true testament to really a good solutions provider, because when we reach out we're not just stuck with one option, there's multiple options. What do you foresee? Or do you see, rather, some of the trends maybe that are happening now that you can see happening in the next 12 to 18 months in the landscape industry, from different types, whether it's sustainable landscaping or outdoor rooms and kitchens and so forth? What's your sight on that?

Speaker 3:

I mean we've seen a lot of attention paid to how they're going to maintain these outdoor living areas, because everybody wants more outdoor space, right? I mean not just because of the popularity of them, but because COVID created a new urgency to have space at home to entertain, to spend time together and to be outside. So so outdoor spaces are more popular than ever. But then once people put them in, they realize, oh man, I gotta, I gotta fertilize this thing, I gotta water it, I gotta, I gotta weed it, I gotta trim it, I gotta. It's going to grow and I have to cut it down and maybe replace or like.

Speaker 3:

There's a lot of the maintenance that came into these new beautiful outdoor living areas that you don't have to do that in a living room. So there's a lot more attention on the front end to what does it mean six months from now, a year from now, two years, three years from now, to maintain this property? So we're seeing more natives. We're seeing more high efficiency irrigation systems, controls that are similar to the home, so Wi-Fi based autonomy, so robot mowers. There's a lot of things like that that are coming out to make the space that everybody wants, the desired outdoor living area that everybody wants manageable. It is living area that everybody wants manageable it is.

Speaker 3:

It's a. It became so. It was kind of a. It was quick to come. Everybody wanted these outdoor spaces and built these outdoor spaces and then all of a sudden, now how do we maintain them? So now we're starting on the front end of that, to to, to spend time talking to the end user around their expectations, and then what are they going to do to maintain it? And then, kind of compounding that issue is how do we get labor? As a maintenance contractor, labor is very difficult. So how do we get to an area where I know what you want but it's going to cost you twice as much to maintain that property than it? Is something that is laid out a little different, planted with different things, very similar, but the end result will be an easier maintenance.

Speaker 2:

So so you spoke one word there that I mean was technology, and I think about technology. I think about, you know, the years when you and I got started and whether we were moving trees or granite steps and crushing our fingers and trying to, you know if we even had straps at that point. And now I think about stone magnets and tree movers and things of that. But then also you know, also from a sales and marketing and you know, service side of things, how have you seen the technology change and how is SiteOne embracing that?

Speaker 3:

So yeah, on the technology side, on the installation and end user technology, like smart controllers and design softwares and grabbos and all the things that help us move product without tearing up our backs or our fingers those are becoming commonplace and it's really anyone who's going to move stuff with straps and bring forces is wasting labor and needs to catch up with some of the technology. I think that's part of it, but more importantly, I think, is some of the bms software, so the business management softwares and in scheduling softwares and dispatch softwares. That allows contractors to run their business not just in a way that um is more profitable or they understand their profit, but that's predictable and kind of what the end user expects. Now I have a contractor that works at my house and I know when they're coming. I get a text that says, hey, I'm coming. It's nice. It's nice to know that it makes me pay attention and I have my property ready to be mowed and make sure that I have stuff picked up and that everybody knows and I don't have one of my kids' cars parked in the driveway or off to the side. So not only does it make it easier but I think, as me, as a homeowner, it makes me feel good about it. When I get home tonight I know the lawn is going to be mowed, so there's a lot to that side of it. But going back to the business management softwares, it puts everybody on a level playing field, or a more level playing field, and brings up our trade.

Speaker 3:

Over the years I have heard that we are the last to get paid or the last on a property. We are not a trade, we're landscapers, and I've fought it and I've fought it. You know, don't act like a ditch digger, act like a, you know, act like a trade. And the more we do that, you know, the better off we will all be as an industry. But also the end user will get what they ask for. A lot of times the one who misses the most wins the most right. You've heard that when you're bidding against a customer that's out there just flying by the seat of their pants, and if you're bidding against them, it becomes frustrating and counterproductive to go do it because the homeowner is going to be upset, because they're not going to get what they want.

Speaker 3:

And it's easy for us to be very clear. The more technology we use, we can be very clear with what we're providing to the end user, and then we do it. A lot on the supply side is to show you exactly what you're going to get and what it would take to do this project, and the more clear we are with everyone, the better end result we're going to get and the more less drama we put into this industry. So I think that's a and it's great to see more and more of the BMS softwares coming through to help understand overhead and what it would take to do the job and how many projects you can take on and not overextending yourself and pressuring your crew and giving your crew some predictability as well. You know, landscapers always want good people. We have one contractor I won't mention their name, but they have.

Speaker 3:

I think it was 98.8% retention rate on their associates in 2025 versus 2024, which was impressive, right, and this is not a small company. This is over a hundred associates at this company and one of the things they talk about is being predictable and letting their teams understand what they're doing that day. Because, if you're, let's think of myself as a 20-year-old kid I'm coming out to work on the Mo Crew and all of a sudden, they tell me I'm moving rocks all day. Well, maybe I would have worn something different. Or I would have, you know, prepped myself a little different. Or if you think you're moving rocks all day and then you go and you're going to be string trimming all day, I would have wore different pants. Like there's different things, that if we're predictable, it makes the work experience better and they spend a lot of time focused on that and they have some happy associates and ultimately that leads to a better business and a better experience for their end user.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, wow, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's really great. I think about that technology aspect too and you know, by nature most of us, you know, didn't come out of business school. That are, you know that started in the landscape industry or landscape entrepreneurs. It just wasn't, that wasn't the track right. It was, whether it was a Thompson School at UNH or Stockbridge and I'm talking locally of course now, but that's typically where a lot of the roots were, just simply School of Hard Knocks right, and came out of it.

Speaker 2:

So embracing the technology is difficult but I will share and I'm sure you agree, and to your point, it makes you a far more successful person. It raises the professional level and you know it's all about perception. Right, if you show up and you're leaking oil on the client's driveway and your truck is rotted or people aren't acting safe, they don't have cones, they don't have safety vests, things of that nature, how can you expect to be treated at a higher level and more respectful if you're not putting some of those inputs? That tends to be a challenge and we talk about that all the time and even with the whole trade thing developing now, the more that we raise the bar in the level of professionalism, the more inputs, I think, and the more interest we're going to get. That's safe to say.

Speaker 3:

Absolutely. Yeah, and you just touched on something that I'm kind of passionate about. We talk about it when I was spending a lot of time leading sellers and we were talking about losing good losses on when we were bidding a project or something. A good loss means we knew exactly what it was going to take us to serve this project, what it was going to cost us to buy the material and what we needed to spend to deliver that product. And if we lost it and we were on this side of that number, we're fine with it.

Speaker 3:

We don't want to do this if it's going to mean a negative impact to the business. Nobody wants to do that. It's not profitable sales. So, and as a contractor, a lot of times there's an emotional driver on winning a project and and yeah, we, a lot of us that grew up school hard knocks don't have that business mind behind us. Going what Nope Doesn't make financial sense. Don't do that. You're. You're getting ready to make an emotional decision and some of the technology has made it a lot easier for us to do it without spending 40 hours in a chair. You know managing your business, so absolutely.

Speaker 2:

I think about. You know we're talking about some of the trainings that SiteOne offers and it's spectacular, Quite frankly, we try to take advantage of it as much as possible, but you have a program called SiteOne University that takes place, I believe, across the country, but I know for us here in the Northeast it's in the wintertime months and that's where there's a lot of great opportunity. What are some of the other things SiteOne is doing to help promote some of those technical and some of those training opportunities for their end user?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, we've tried to do as much as we can online, and COVID sparked some of that. But also it's tough. We've had some of the Site 1Us in Boston where I've sat in the hotel looking at an empty room because we've got a foot and a half of snow outside and it's tough to plan an event that costs tens of thousands of dollars to get food ready for. Then it snows two feet and it's tough. So, having an availability, and not just because of the financial part of it but now we have people who want to come and listen to a presentation or a hands-on training and they can't because they're in a plow truck right now. So making it available digitally has been a big effort of ours, not just formally but in kind of tutorial videos and spreading it out through social media and working with our supply partners of hey, you want access to our customers, let's, let's pool our resources and present some, some training to them or some product demonstrations through social media. So social media has been one of them.

Speaker 3:

More frequency has been another one that we've tried to do instead of just waiting for the wintertime throughout the year.

Speaker 3:

I mean it's hard to do in April and May, but you know July. If you're not on vacation, there's some time you can dedicate to some classes in July and August, especially in New England, and then getting you know before the end of the year as well. So and then obviously January, february, march, trade show season, that's kind of our site, one new calendar. So, and then the other thing we've done is asking what is important to you, so not just relying on our supply partners to say, hey, I want to train on X, or for us to say, well, we've always done a basic irrigation training, let's do that again. But asking what does your staff need? And we've realized recently that we have staff that have turned over in the last five years, that they need some of the stuff that we've taught on five years ago. Anyway, so pulling our customers to tell us what they want us to put on for training has been a big win in the impact of that training.

Speaker 2:

If you could provide some advice for maybe some of these younger folks looking to either get into the trade or looking to adapt and grow. What are some of the suggestive impacts you could provide that might be helpful to them?

Speaker 3:

One is enjoy the ride. I guess you know some of the things that I look for, my retirement job riding a mower on a golf course in the morning and playing golf in the afternoon, and I guess enjoying the ride is one of them. But be curious to what's out there. Don't think that my job is to take my boss's job when you know when he retires or he moves up like. Be curious to what is out there on the install side, the supplier side, the distribution side, the tech side. You know and ask as many questions as you can and try as many. You know positions or different experiences.

Speaker 3:

We talk a lot about the right butt in the right seat. You know we've got to make sure we put the right person in the right seat and man, when you find the right position. This industry is so much fun and it is so rewarding when you get that right position. I am probably not meant to be on the business end of a shovel and I think if I would have stuck with thinking that that was the path that I needed to take, I wouldn't have been in the industry as long as I am. So be curious, be open to those other positions I've been in I think I counted it recently 11 different positions within SiteOne and I've got a pretty good example or a pretty good experience across multiple positions and that's helped me. So if you're getting into this, be curious about what's out there, go to trade shows, talk to people, listen to podcasts, read books, get experience and sky's the limit no, that's great and I think curiosity is something that, to your point, if you embrace that, you stay curious, you're going to always find different opportunities.

Speaker 2:

So I kind of wanted to leave on one note here. You know we're big at Piscataqua about community outreach and helping folks and doing a lot of, you know, different things within the communities we live and work in and I wanted to give a shout out to Mr Malone. He's, he's a, and not just him. I mean you have a lot of your folks are great, all of them. I've never had a bad instance but this individual just really embraces. He embraces the business, he embraces the SiteOne customer experience philosophies that you have and I know he's done some things on the outside, you know on his own personal time, and just wanted to give a shout out to him.

Speaker 2:

I think he's a great advocate for not only the industry and for SiteOne. You know the folks that are out there trying to work their way up through. He's a great guy and super pleased to you know to be shared as a colleague with him and know that he's out there representing us. Well, again, just wanted to kind of give a shout out to him and can you, would you mind sharing a little bit of. Maybe I know there's something that he does out there in the community on his own time and just real, really cool thing.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, thomas is. If you ever spent five minutes with him he's entertaining. But he's also very passionate. And Thomas, you know his father wonderful father mowed yards and did some landscaping on the side and Thomas was in the FFA program and he came to work with us right out of school and kind of you know, I always described him as a Labrador puppy school and kind of you know, I always described him as a Labrador puppy Like his. His energy and ambition walks through the door, you know, 10 minutes before his body comes through and didn't know what he was going to do. And he's been through a couple of positions with us and I think has found his groove serving customers. But but one of the things he's very passionate about is the FFA program in the state of Massachusetts. He was a past president when he was at high school and every year he takes a week off to participate in their state meeting and he is. This is what all of our good, all of our good, most of our best or service oriented activities we do at Site One come with one person's passion and then they bring the rest of us into it when they share their passion with us and we come and join them.

Speaker 3:

So Thomas has had as many as 20 to 30 SiteOne associates and customers at different FFA events to judge or serve food or do something to help young people get a picture of what the landscape industry looks like and make their high school FFA experience positive and fun. So recently they were doing a hardscape competition and it was going to be the same thing they've always done and Thomas said, hey, can I, you know, put a rocket booster on this thing and I'll get some suppliers. You know, put a rocket booster on this thing and I'll get some suppliers, some contractors, to help sponsor and we'll get some food and we'll spend some time with them. And it turned into a pretty good event where everybody was fed. And then it turned into kind of a job fair where students were asking questions and I believe there were several exchanges made to where there's probably going to be some internships or summer positions ready to go for these students. And Thomas is very passionate about it.

Speaker 3:

I'll give you one more example that kind of shows. He was showing me the video of him talking to the group this past year and he's you know he's breaking down, you know he's tearing up talking to these kids because he's passionate about helping them build a career in this industry and making their experience positive. So he's he's a good one and we've got a bunch of experiences like that or examples like that of being we try to be a good neighbor in our communities and it's. The best ones are not checks. You know, we write checks for organizations as well. We write checks for organizations as well, but the best ones are this it's time spent, experience is given and trying to align especially young people with opportunities.

Speaker 2:

Yeah Well, thanks for sharing that Much appreciated and those are the things I love and I hear and for as long as you and I have been in it, it's very cool to be shoulder to shoulder with some of these younger guys who are promoting the industry and trying to really show these younger individuals the career paths that are possible. So thanks for sharing that and thank you for everything that SiteOne does throughout the communities. Siteone's been a fantastic partner, I know, at Piscataqua Landscaping for many years and continues to be, and we appreciate the educational opportunities across the board that come through as site one. So thanks again for all of that. Thanks again for being on the show today, greg and Sharon. We hit on a lot of good things today, so really appreciate your time and being on the show.

Speaker 3:

No, I appreciate the being invited and thank you, Jay, for the partnership and for spending your time promoting the landscape industry to the world. So thank you for doing it. Look forward to listening to more episodes in the future.

Speaker 2:

Awesome. Thank you very much. Next week we'll have Josh on Power Equipment Plus down on Long Island. He's got some insights on the power industry and as we talk about where things are going with battery-operated equipment. So looking forward to that. So thanks everyone for joining the show.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for tuning in to Blizzard and Bloom with Jay Rotinelli. We hope you feel inspired and empowered. Don't forget to subscribe and leave a review. Join us next week for more insights and stories to help you bloom in your business journey.