At the 49th National Collegiate Landscape Competition (NCLC), presented by NALP and powered by STIHL, 770 students from 56 schools had the opportunity to discover a welcoming industry with a multitude of opportunities available to them.
Hosted at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado, 83 students from 44 different schools were recognized at the Foundation Scholarship Recognition breakfast on Thursday, March 20. Almost $150,000 was awarded in scholarships to these students.
Keynote speaker Kristen Mowery, seasonal color division manager with McHale Landscape Design, Inc., and past scholarship recipient, encouraged the students to find their champions. These are the people who see your potential and push you to do more.
Students had a chance to meet with some of their possible champions at the following career fair, where 73 industry companies were present to share all the different paths available.
Jennifer Lopez-Prinskowski, a freshman greenhouse and nursery management major at Spokane Community College, says it was awesome seeing all the companies at the career fair supporting students and all the internships available. She says she came to the career fair with eyes wide open and no particular goals but left with a lot of goals and a possible internship in Spokane.
She says she would like to work in a greenhouse after she graduates and possibly even own her own greenhouse in the future.
“I would like to develop more native plants in our area because we deal with a lot of wildfire issues, so that’s definitely my main concern,” Lopez-Prinskowski says. “I think just learning like nursery half of it is just pretty awesome.”
For Drew Tucker, a senior landscape construction management major at Mississippi State University, it was his second time attending NCLC and his goal was to get his name out there to different companies. He says he’s worked with U.S. Lawns in Jackson, Mississippi, and Schoggen Scapes in Flint, Mississippi. He says he has another internship with Schoggen Scapes this summer and hopes to have a future with them.
He says the internship has been extremely beneficial as he’s been able to mess up and learn to do better.
“It’s been great being around a bunch of people that want to teach you, and that won’t just throw you out to the wolves,” Tucker says. “They want to help you learn and figure it out.”
The career fair also encouraged students as they realized they have a lot of job options after they graduate.
“Having all these companies here is very inspiring, and then seeing them being alumni of the schools that these students are from, it gives you hope that I’m going to find a job, I’m going be okay,” says Trishia Nguyen, a junior horticulture major at Texas A&M.
Josiah Hull, a senior plant science and landscape technology major at Cuyahoga Community College, says he went to the career fair with an open mind and says a company’s culture is what attracts him the most. He says he is looking for a relaxed environment where you’re not just a number. Hull says it was reassuring seeing how many companies at the career fair focus on their culture.
“It means a lot for one that they take the time to network with the upcoming generation and be out there showing us what’s available,” Hull says. “It’s also helpful as a student knowing that there seems to be a lot of employment options and a lot of companies that care about their employees.”
Participating companies also reaped multiple benefits from being at the career fair. Tim Lindgren, owner/founder of Lindgren Landscape, based in Fort Collins, Colorado, says they attend NCLC to build brand recognition, and because recruiting is one of the hardest aspects of the business.
Visterra Landscape Group, based in Rosemont, Illinois, attended for the first time this year and found many students were interested in their internship program. Jim Engineer, national director of marketing & communications for Visterra Landscape Group, says they expect to fill one or two of their internship positions based on the talented students they met with at the career fair.
“It’s been great,” says Brook Haygood, national director of sales for Visterra Landscape Group. “We identified a lot of account managers we never would have exposure to. We’re definitely planning on making some hires here. We’re very lucky with the regional spread of where all the kids came from, and it really fulfilled our need.”
Another first-time attendee was Creative Environments, based in Tempe, Arizona. Kurt Ceballes, vice president of operations for Creative Environments, says they came because they were struggling with continually fishing out of the same pond.
“Honestly, we’ve been so accustomed to doing the same thing that checking this out opened up our eyes,” Ceballes says. “I would say to other companies that are on the fence, take the chance. We haven’t seen the rewards yet, but just the interactions today have been the reward.”
Ceballes says NCLC has exceeded their expectations and the students are engaged. Several have already been emailed him already.
Michele Posehn, senior recruiting manager for SiteOne Landscape Supply, says they’ve been coming for at least seven years. She says NCLC just keeps getting bigger and better.
Posehn says every year, they have a theme and try to make their booth interactive, fun and engaging for the students. This year, students could paint rocks at SiteOne’s booth.
“A lot of people know SiteOne maybe for one or another specific line of business,” Posehn says. “We really wanted the students to see the depth of our line of business. We were focused this year on hardscape, and that’s why we did the ‘rock star’ shirts and rock painting. We’re making a huge push this year for nursery and hardscape talent, so we really wanted the students to see not only something fun but a product that we sell at our stores.”
She says not only is NCLC great for connecting with students, but also with faculty members.
Adam Leger, regional vice president with Landscape Workshop, based in Birmingham, Alabama, agrees that NCLC is a powerful tool for building connections with professors across the country.
“If the faculty knows your company, and they respect you, and they know that you’re going to take care of their students, they’re going to push people to you,” Leger says. “The more interns that we get from more different colleges, and the more engaged we come in the faculty, they’re going to start pushing students to us. The faculty then becomes like a recruiting mechanism for us, without us actually even going there.”
Cally Anderson, a recruiter with Weller Brothers Landscape Professionals, based in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, says they have been attending NCLC since 2018 and have grown their presence every year as they want to showcase all they have to offer, as well as their award-winning projects.
Anderson says they are always looking to hire great people and want to support students’ career growth.
“We all know that the landscape industry is smaller than we want it to be,” Anderson says. “We want it to continue growing, and NCLC is the place to be to support students, whether they want to work for you or not. We just want to make the green industry better. So come to NCLC and invest in the students, invest into your company, and get your name out there.”
Thank you to our elite partners STIHL, Stanley Black & Decker, Caterpillar and Aspire for supporting this event. Additionally, thank you to our Gold partners, John Deere and Mariani Premier Group, as well as all the other industry partners who help make NCLC possible.
