We were lucky to catch up with Martin Thomas recently and have shared our conversation below.

Martin, appreciate you joining us today. The first dollar your business earns is always special and we’d love to hear how your brand made its first dollar of revenue.

I was a full time student at the University of Kentucky in their Landscape Architecture College. I was using my GI Bill to help fund my education but was wanting to earn more money. I became aware of an opportunity to bid on a landscape maintenance contract for a sizable property. This was in mid January 35 years ago. I had never bid a project. I did not own any trucks or equipment and had no employees. I spent time after school trying to time emulate the task of mowing and timing myself as I went. Once i came up with what i thought were numbers for a bid, i hired someone to word process the document into a professional looking bid. I remember submitting that bid and being ask to come back for another visit with the board of directors. I was nervous and i remember them asking me “tell us about your equipment”. As i mentioned, i had no equipment but i responded, “i run nothing but new equipment”. They awarded me the job in February and the mowing would begin April 1. i was able to get a trailer and purchase mowers, trimmers and blowers but i had no were to keep them and no employees to run the equipment. I was hauling the dreams of my fledgling business around on a trailer to class and then scouting properties that had any kind of small out building that i might trade for mowing services. The number of rejections was impressive. I finally met a gentleman who owned a large farm and he let me use a horse stall for trade in mowing services around his home. I hired employees, put them in uniforms and trained them on my landlords property. Keep in mind i was still taking 15-18 hours at UK. The days were long but on April 1 I delivered the crew in the early morning to the Job and they went to work. It appeared that we were a landscape company. I had that contract for 3 years and it helped me graduate from the program. This humble beginning will never be forgotten and the memory always cherished.

Martin, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I graduated from Western Kentucky University in 1985 with a degree in Agriculture. At that time the Ag industry was in distress and jobs were scarce. I ended up working as a restaurant manager but i was uninspired by the work. I ended up enlisting in the Army as an infantry soldier and was deployed to W. Germany. When i was free i would visit the gardens and marvel at the landscape and architecture of this beautiful country. I was inspired to study landscape architecture and upon my discharge i enrolled at the University of Kentucky.

At Landscape Alternatives we help our customers create beautiful functional spaces as well as solve grading and drainage issues. We have the best group of employees and many have been with us for over 15 years. Our people, their skilled craftmanship and attention to detail has been what has sustained us through the years. I have learned that after you provide direction just get out of the way.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

In April of 2014 our property was flooded. My wife and I were marred less than a year prior and we lived in our house which is located next to our business on the same property. At the time we had 5 grade school/highschool children. We received over 8″ of rain in less than 24 hours. A boat was deployed by responders and my wife and 2 of our kids were rescued. The flood waters devastated our home and business. As a seasonal enterprise i really had serious doubts if we would financially survive this. We had no insurance for any of the business loss and the FEMA policy we had for our home only covered about half the value to restore. It took over a year but we were able to put it all back together. Over the next several years i built a flood wall around the house to include a pump system for the internal water.

Fast forward to last month. As the rains started i was hyper vigilant. We had never had to test this wall before. My wife had serious doubts and packed a bag in case we had to bug out. I remember walking around in the middle of the night watching the waters rise. I saw it take out our fences and gates and watched the water slowly creep toward our home. The gate was in place and the pump was working. The water kept coming. As the water started rising up on the wall and gate the pump started kicking on frequently. I stood in amazement as i watched my country boy flood wall solution actually work.. We had 4″ in our landscape offices but the wall kept flooding out of our home.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

When we had a garden center i noticed that the container plants would blow over all the time. When a plant blows over it spill the fertilizer it does not get watered properly and most distressing is that you have to spend the time to stand it back up. I looked for some kind of product that would help but could not find anything. i did a time study on the amount of time we were paying employees to set the plants up. I was shocked. I designed a mat with cells to receive the plants and built a cardboard model to test. After a series of tweaks the thing worked. I found a plastic manufacturer in Indiana that could build the molds, and make the product. I raised some money and built what is known as Container Slik. The first 2 years on the market i was going to 12 trade shows a year and i set up distributorships nation wide. Sales were doing great but my children were little and i felt i was missing out. So after 2 years i quit the shows and thought that the distributor could “carry the water”. No such luck. The product was well received but lasted way too long. It was like i had invented a light bulb that would not burn out. I have struggled with refining and marketing this product for years but just recently have decided to shut it down and sell the molds, dies and inventory. Sometimes you just have to let something go.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.landscape-alternatives.com
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