Their Walker dealer calls them "hard working folks." For Rick and Joyce Cooke, however, they see themselves a simply getting as much out of life as possible. And how!
In addition to operating their own landscaping business, the young couple designed and built their dream log house, and both have worked two jobs - almost since they were old enough to work.
The Cookes are young, energetic and literally make the most out of every minute. Joyce, for example, carries her laptop computer in the truck and makes out invoices, does payroll, performs property estimates and completes other administrative chores while her foreman drives to another job site. "This saves me at least a day's worth of work each week at the office," she tells.
Rick, who operates the landscaping side of the business, is always on the lookout for that next machine to allow him to be more efficient at the job site. His most recent addition is a Cat 236 skid-steer loader fitted with a labor-saving snow plow, backhoe and pallet fork attachments.
"We're always looking for ways to improve our business," say the owners of Forever Green Landscaping in Foster, Rhode Island." Being married and working together is like having two owners who are equally zealous about their business," adds Joyce.
In business 11 year , Forever Green Landscaping today offers a full range of landscaping and lawn maintenance services to 75 residential and five commercial customers. During peak season, the company will operate four crews - one cutting crew, one maintenance crew and two construction crew - with eight employees.
"We've made two decisions that have helped us grow our business," Rick explains. "The first was to go strictly with high-quality accounts, those that were willing to utilize the full range of our services. The second was to develop our skills for providing full service which allows both of our divisions to feed off one another. Joyce gets more maintenance work when I do installations, and he refers renovation work to me."
Joyce notes there are other benefits to their full-service approach, not the least of which is allowing commercial customers to write one check for all their landscaping needs. The fact that the company pro-rates its service over a 12-month period also helps property managers with their budgeting process.
Being the one service provider also gives Forever Green Landscaping more control over a property. If the landscaping looks great, the company can take full credit. If it doesn't, it takes the blame. More importantly, having complete control ensures landscaping and all maintenance practices work in harmony.
Modest Beginnings
As Rick tells the story, Joyce began mowing lawns a year after they were married. She started with 10 customers, and had 25 by the end of the year. Her equipment repertoire included two 19-inch Sears mowers and two string line trimmers. At the time, Rick was a graphics artist working an 11-days-on, 3-days-off schedule. He helped Joyce on those three off days and after work.
In 1991, the company Rick worked for went out of business. He found another "pre-press" job working a 36-hour weekend shift, allowing him to devote an entire week to the landscaping business.
"I liked landscaping," Rick tells. "But I made more money in pre-press and our benefits were paid for. At the time, it was hard to walk away. But walk away he did six years later. The rest is history - almost.
By the time Rick entered the scene full time, Joyce's maintenance business had flourished. She had many more customers, and crews had discarded their 19-inch push mowers in favor of 48-inch walk-behinds. In fact, business was so good, she needed another walk-behind.
"I was in favor of one of those new stand-on walk-behinds," says Rick. "But when Joyce saw the Walker, her decision was made.
"I immediately liked the extra grass catching capacity of the mower and the beautiful cut it delivered," Joyce relates. "After trying it out, we found it was even more maneuverable than our walk-behinds."
The Cookes purchased a 20-hp GHS Walker with a 48-inch deck to be followed shorty thereafter by a 25-hp model. The purchases immediately eliminated two employees. Joyce says the crews now mow as much grass with two Walkers as they once did with four 48-inch walk-behinds.
The company saves on labor costs and saves time at the job site. Fall cleanup is a case in point, Joyce explains.
"Before we had the Walkers, we would stop mowing until all the leaves had fallen from the trees. It was just too time continuing to pick up the leaves one week at a time. Now, picking up leaves is a real breeze. We simply blow leaves and debris from the drives, walks, and beds onto the lawns, and then pick it up when we mow. The Walker acts as a vacuum as much as a mower. It's a win/win for customers who now have clean properties throughout the fall and who don't have to pay for all that raking at the end of the season. And we make money throughout because we never stop mowing."
"We're always looking for anything that makes our life easier and saves time. The Walkers do that. Just as another example, we do a lot of deck height changing in Rhode Island. With the Walker, changing deck height takes only a minute or two. But the real key is their mowing and catching capability, their maneuverability, and their ease of operation. We get a lot of dew here, but the Walkers leave a nice cut- wet or dry. In terms of maneuverability and operation, shoot, even a 60-year-old woman could cut the grass with a Walker."
Progressive Duo
The backdrop for Forever Green Landscaping is the Cooke homestead located on 10 acres of property. Here, Rick and Joyce have been working diligently over the years to build their own home literally from scratch. They've sawed down trees, fashioned logs, and built a perfectly beautiful structure in a wilderness-like setting. Rick says they didn't know anything about plumbing, electricity or home construction in general, but just "went for it" after reading more than a few books.
Pioneers at work, too, Rick and Joyce were the first Walker owners in the state. Rick also employs state-of-the-art technology in the landscaping side of the business, taking advantage of his graphics arts skills and experience to provide customers with a digital representation of their new landscape before the first cobblestone is laid or the first shrub is installed.
With an estimated 1,000 lawn maintenance operators and landscapers working in the small state of Rhode Island, the industry is as competitive there as anyplace in the country. The Cookes have decided the only way to grow and prosper in the state is to squeeze as much as they possibly can from every day, take advantage of every competitive edge, and deliver uncompromising quality to each and every customer. It works for them.
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