Five years ago, an accident left Jeff Vining paralyzed from his chest down. A break between his sixth and seventh vertebrae rendered him a quadriplegic.

Owners of successful lawn and landscape maintenance companies have at least one common bond. They will tell you there is no shortcut to the top.

Roland Wenig is a late bloomer in the lawn maintenance business. He hung his shingle when he was 42 years old. Ten years later, he has no regrets about his career choice.

Not many lawn pros can gross better than $25,000 in their spare time. But that's what Dennis Sloan, owner of Sloan Landscape Maintenance, Ardmore, Oklahoma, did last year. This sixth grade science teacher did it with two Walker mowers, 20 residential accounts and virtually no help. Sounds like a lot of work for a part-time job? It is, notes Sloan, but not nearly as much as it used to be.

There's more to mowing lawns than meets the eye. If you don't think so, just sit down for a day and talk with the Corbetts, Craig and Natalie. Owners of Mowin' Ranger, Tremonton, Utah, this husband and wife team has been mowing lawns since the early '80s. Like so many lawn maintenance companies, where they are today and where they came from is as different as night and day. The Corbetts, however, are unique in terms of how they made the trip.

Not many people start careers the way New Jersey-native Sam Russo did in 1982 when a serious motorcycle accident left him temporarily disabled. Therapy consisted of walking behind a friend's lawn mower. Two and one-half million lawns later, he still hasn't looked back.