We were lucky to catch up with Eric Metcalf & Eric R. Hayes, Jr. recently and have shared our conversation below.
Eric Metcalf & Eric Hayes, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?
Our mission is to create, cultivate, and sustain the health and prosperity of land for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations. Our mission is in place to remind us of the importance of our job in our day to day work, but is most meaningful to us because we are creating a legacy for our future generations – we want to create a healthy and beautiful environment that our children and our children’s children will get to experience.
We are inspired by the thought of planting a tree today that someone may sit under 200 years from now; the amount of wildlife it could feed or provide a home to over many years; the amount of oxygen it produces or carbon it sequesters; and so much more! Our passion for being a good land steward is what ultimately drives us, but our mission is most important to help us look past our nose or beyond the horizon and remind us that we are just a piece to a much bigger puzzle. Our passion and our mission drive us to achieve a healthy, happy, and high-functioning ecosystem for sustainable periods of time due in part to proper conservation.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
Keeping it Native Land Management, or KINLM, got into the industry on the backs of the founders’ networks and work ethic. This is an industry where you have to want to work hard and crawl into what we call “the gnar hole”. Most folks hear that we work out in the woods and they think sunshine and daisies. Imagine your hottest summer day where even the shade feels hot, the humidity is high and sticky, chiggers and ticks crawling/biting you, bees and mosquitos buzzing, spider webs across your sweaty face. Generally dressed in boots, pants, long sleeves and all our necessary PPE for the project that day. All of this occurring while you complete a pretty physically demanding task with slopes ranging from a flat plain to rock face drop offs. There aren’t many people that want to exert themselves on that kind of work these days let alone in those conditions. When we say it takes a certain kind of crazy, we mean you have to be able to walk into a patch of multiflora rose on your worst day and still love what you are doing when you come out. We are that kind of crazy!
What do we do? That is always the most difficult question to answer because there is such a wide range of what we do depending on the project, time of year, and expectations of our clients. In the shortest explanation of what we do, we promote healthy habitats for wildlife and forestry ecosystems. This can get as specific to managing a forest or upland for a certain wildlife species to something as broad as “I just want my property healthy”.
Services we commonly find ourselves providing is wildlife habitat plantings, non-native invasive species control, sawyering hazard trees and timber stand improvement, herbicide applications, trail establishment, and maintenance for foot trails and all weather access roads. We have found ourselves doing all sorts of projects that we never even thought of but if it can enhance or impact soil, water, wildlife or forestry, we will help to the best of our abilities. Our passions help guide our discipline, we aren’t willing to do a job that negatively impacts the environment just to earn money. We would rather vest ourselves and educate the landowner on best practices to care for the environment and walk away from the job, than to negatively impact the land and wildlife for financial gain.
Speaking of education, that is one thing that we try to provide as our schedules allow. We love to assist and attend habitat workshops not only to learn but also to educate. We love providing information for landowners to more clearly interpret the woods or their property when they take a walk. We have done lots of education for local envirathon teams, high school “bio-blitz”, Pheasants Forever for staff and public, and so much more. One of our co-founders attends an awesome camp for high school aged youth called “Camp Canopy” every year to help educate and try to “pass on his passions”. We believe doing this helps us stand out because we are imparting our knowledge and expertise to people who would not normally be exposed to this type of fieldwork and we enjoy giving back to the community that routinely supports us.
We are most proud of the team we are building. Without the KINLM team none of this would be possible and the bigger the team we build means we can increase the amount of work towards the greater good. All of this is the backbone to building your brand or your name. Our hard work, dedication, and ability to see things through while communicating clearly is what strengthens the brand. Our greatest brand build is that there is no project too big, too small, or impossible.
We’d love to hear the story of how you turned a side-hustle into a something much bigger.
Our co-owner/founder Eric R. Hayes Jr. originally started this as a side-hustle in his early college years. He was employed with ODNR-DNAP when he had the epiphany that he was just out there “keeping it native” by specializing and implementing practices that improved the health and prosperity of a native environment and reducing the presence of non-native plant species. This got him thinking about how he could take a deeper dive into care of a native environment and do this to earn some extra “college funds”. For several years, Eric would spend his free time helping friends and colleagues with personal projects that focused on invasive species removal but it quickly snowballed into a much bigger practice. Very quickly, Eric found himself in the depths of numerous large-scale projects that filled up every second of free time he had and required him to recruit friends to carry out the projects he was so passionate about. Eric always said it as “help me, help you help others”. Eventually, after trying to convince several people to come on the crazy train with him, Eric Hayes met Eric Metcalf, the other co-owner/founder. They developed a partnership and friendship while working together; sharing stories and passions of the great outdoors. For a period of time, the two Erics balanced their “day jobs” with their side-hustle until they finally made the leap to leave their positions and dedicate themselves to the side-hustle fulltime, and thus Keeping it Native Land Management was born. This came with a transition period that was tough at first, but almost immediately started paying off. Now, the two Erics have been fully vested into the business for almost two years with nothing but growth and success ahead of them. They are at the forefront of every project as project managers and have teams of workers across the Midwest that work alongside the owners in the field. The team has recently started travelling to other states as word of their expertise has spread. They have added a Marketing Manager to the team and have received interest from private investors who see the value they bring to the world. Although the business has boomed, both Eric Hayes and Eric Metcalf remain humble in their role and constantly remind the team why they are there: to create, cultivate, and sustain the health and prosperity of land for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations.
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
Our ability to quickly and clearly communicate has been a huge build. We spend a lot of time individually talking and answering questions with all of our landowners. The countless late hours with texts, emails, and phone calls all while trying to operate and build a business because we value the education and purpose behind our projects…that’s what helps us stand out. Our ability not only to show up and complete a project, but to walk away at the end and know that our clients understand the next steps to keep their projects going. We value relationship-building with every client so they feel supported and we feel reassured that our project will “stick” and make the everlasting impact that our business’s mission is rooted in.
We don’t necessarily think of our “reputation” in the grand scheme of things. We think of each client as a fellow earth-loving enthusiast and we want to nurture and promote their desire to improve the native landscape, often becoming great friends by the end of the project. This creates a healthy and progressive network of people who understand that we not only care about the project but for them. 
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.keepingitnativelandmanagement.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/keepingitnative_lm/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KeepingitNative