Driving down the road, 20- year-old Jason Fawcett cradles two cell phones. In between calls he talks about his life as an owner of a very successful lawn maintenance company and full-time fire fighter.
“My fiancé Heather and I figured it out the other day,” says Fawcett, president of Elizabeth River Lawn & Landscapes, Inc., in Suffolk, Virginia. “Between working at the fire station and managing my company, I work more than 200 hours every two weeks. It doesn’t bother me though. I enjoy working hard and I’m building a future.”
That’s an understatement. Fawcett has been mowing lawns and driving trucks since he can remember. Throughout high school mowing 40 lawns a week and fighting fires as a volunteer fire fighter were standard fare. After graduating, he trained to be a professional fire fighter and, later, joined the Federal Fire service near Williamsburg, a 40-minute commute, and began working a staggered 24- hour on, 24-hour off schedule.
“My schedule is kind of tough to figure out,” Fawcett admits. “It goes like this. I work 24 hours on, 24 hours off for four days and then get three days off. The rotation repeats itself and then I get four days off, and it repeats itself again and I get five days off. Then it starts over.” When he’s not at the station or en route, he’s living with his parents, building a home and office/shop for his business, and mowing and maintaining 190 accounts.
“I think I could maintain twice, maybe three times the number of accounts,” Fawcett reflects. “The thing is, you cannot skimp on quality and be successful. I learned about customer satisfaction growing up when I worked at my grandfather’s auto and truck body shop and towing business. If you’re willing to work hard and keep customers satisfied, then you can and will be successful.”
Fawcett started his maintenance company in 1999 while still in high school. “That was the first year I filed tax returns,” he recalls. That year, he reported $35,000 in revenue. Last year, the figure jumped to $300,000 and he projects to do $400,000 in mowing and maintenance this year.
Two Crews
Elizabeth River Lawn & Landscape has 10 full-time employees and runs two maintenance crews. One crew maintains a mix of commercial and high-end residential accounts in and around the Suffolk area. The other maintains 40 hotels in nearby Virginia Beach. Each crew is armed with a GHS Walker Mower and Shindaiwa hand-held equipment. In addition, the company owns a Kubota ZD zero-turn rider, a Toro Z-Master, a couple of Toro mid-size walk-behinds and a Kubota L-3400 front-end loader.
Fawcett explains, “We offer fullservice maintenance. Crews prune, weed, apply weed control and fertilizer, and install seasonal color. In fact, last winter we planted 18,000 flowers and this spring we did another 23,000.” Approximately one-third of his properties are what he calls “Walker” accounts – where customers want that manicured look and clippings collected.
“I saw my first Walker on a competitor’s trailer six years ago,” Fawcett recalls. “I asked him ‘what’s so good about this machine?’ After he told me, I called up Scott Dodson, manager of Walker dealer Turf & Garden. Scott agreed to demonstrate the mower for my most difficult customer to please, my grandmother. I cut half the lawn, turned on her irrigation system for 15 minutes and then cut the other half. She said it was the ‘best it ever looked,’ so I purchased the mower with the money I saved mowing lawns. My first Walker was a 26-hp unit with a 48-inch GHS deck. Just this spring, I purchased my second one, a 20-hp machine, again with a 48-inch GHS deck.”
Helping Hand
At first blush, one wonders how this young man achieved so much in such a short time. He admits to being more than a little stressed out at times, but who isn’t, he asks. Fawcett has incredible drive and he has a vision. Beyond that, he also has some good help from family and employees. His two foremen David Hartung and Jason Oldfield are experienced and reliable, and Fawcett has known them and most of the crew members for several years. His father Roger, a retired fire fighter, helps him with the financial side of the business.
“Jason has built this business so rapidly in such a short period of time that he really has no time for doing the necessary accounting and other book work,” says Roger. “I have stepped in to help, with payroll, billing and just keeping a pulse on financials. Jason’s company is profitable, but it will become even more profitable as he gains experience.” Jason’s grandfather Morris Finks comes up often in discussions, too. “I consider my grandfather to be my mentor,” says Fawcett. “Like my father, he has an incredible work ethic and I spent most of my early years tagging along behind him at his shop. I think everyone needs someone to look up to and to help show the way.”
A Note of Caution
Then, there’s his mother Candy who has been working for her father, Jason’s grandfather, for more than 30 years. “I worry about Jason because I think he is working too hard,” says Candy. “I just hope he stays with the fire department for his 20 years so he doesn’t have to continue to work hard. The lawn business is hard work.”
Fawcett understands where his mother is coming from, and he agrees that staying with the fire department would be the wise thing to do. But he also plans to stay with the lawn maintenance business, too. As he puts it, he enjoys working hard, but also wants to have something to show for it when the day is done. A reputable company is that “something.” Furthermore, he adds, there’s more synergy between being a lawn maintenance contractor and being a fire fighter that one may think.
“Oh sure, it’s kind of exciting riding in a fire truck with all the lights and whistles. But the thing I like most about being a part of the department is helping people. When you can rescue someone from a burning building or otherwise help people who need help, that’s pretty gratifying. I feel similarly about the landscaping business. We’re in business not just to mow lawns and install plant material. We’re in business to help customers do something that they may neither have the time nor expertise to do.”
Helping people – whether they are in distress or frustrated by their landscape – along with continuing to grow his already growing maintenance, is part of Fawcett’s plan. The tagline on his trucks reads, “Planting the way for the Future.” It could read Planning, too, because this owner plans to lend a helping hand in Suffolk for years to come.
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