place PRIDE OF By Nancy Moffett
TURFPRO
In 1988 Michael Rhoads was 22 years old, re- cently married, working a full-time job as a ma- chinist and two part-time jobs to make ends meet. With little money to spare, this didn’t seem like a good time to start a business. But that’s just what Rhoads did, spending the couple’s last $175 on a weed whacker so he could start Mike’s Lawn Maintenance in Allentown. He had worked for other lawn care companies cutting grass and liked the work.
“I quit my full-time job in March of 1988 and only made $7,000 that fi rst year,” Rhoads says. “It was a lot of hard work, but I was determined not to fail.” By the end of the year he had 40 ac- counts, and the business continued growing from there. “I wanted to prove the naysayers wrong,” he explains, and he worked long hours to do so. His wife, Tammy, answered phones and did the paperwork in those early years.
By 1992 Rhoads was able to buy a home on Main Street in Macungie with an apple orchard out back and room to put up a shop. The couple and their growing family of three children lived
14 May 2013
in the home running the business from there. “It took a lot of sweat, blood and my wife’s tears to make it work, but we did it responsibly. We never
borrowed money, and I worked 10 years straight from sunup to sundown in the season,” Rhoads recalls. Indeed, the Rhoads’ took their fi rst vaca- tion just two years ago.
Six or seven years in, there were more “Mike’s” businesses popping up, so Rhoads changed the name of the business to Turf Professionals, Inc. (Turfpro). Today, the business is still run out of the Macungie house, while the family lives nearby.
Fast forward to the company’s 25th anniversary in 2013, and Turfpro now does business in Lehigh, Bucks and Northampton Counties; has 30 em-
ployees on work crews; fi ve people in the offi ce and a full-time mechanic to keep its fl eet of 22 trucks running. The company has fi ve divisions:
It took a lot of sweat, blood and my wife’s tears to make it work, but we did it…
Landscape Design, Lawn Care, Detail Division, Weekly Mowing and Irrigation…a far cry from one man with a truck and a mower.
Turfpro’s extensive work in landscape design grew out of Rhoads’ lawn customers asking him for the service. He accepted all jobs, learning through trial and error and by taking courses in horticultural and landscape design at Penn State. “I also have a good vision,” he says, that allowed him to design and build outdoor living spaces and plantings.
Today Rhoads and landscape designer Michele Vasko handle the design work, while operation
Lehigh Valley Marketplace
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100