Growing up, Nick Brummel wanted to get to Kansas City Royals games early, not to watch batting practice, but to see the grounds crew get the field ready. Now his company, Brummel Lawn & Landscape LLC, based in Blue Springs, Missouri, helps by caring for the landscaping at professional sports stadiums.
Brummel’s work growing his business to where it is today has earned him the 2022 Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award.
“It is simply amazing with how many other deserving members there are out there and to be selected, I am just speechless,” Brummel says. “I might have been the one to start this place, but I couldn’t have done it without Kyle, my family, and the amazing team we have. They have earned this award with me.”
Through high school and the first two years of college, Brummel worked at a golf course and mowed some yards on the side. While he wanted to major in horticulture, his father encouraged him to get a degree in business because he said, “You won’t want to play with grass for the rest of your life.”
Brummel earned both a business and horticulture degree with a focus on turf.
At that time, he had his sights set on becoming a superintendent of one of the elite golf courses in Kansas City. During college, he ended up getting an internship at a country club in Kansas City. Brummel says while he learned a lot that summer and was able to work a PGA event, the passion was no longer there.
Brummel feared he had made a huge mistake with his career path, but he was still mowing and landscaping on the weekends. That fall semester, he had some classes with Kyle Ford, his future business partner. As their friendship grew, their talks about Brummel’s customer base grew as well.
“One of my classes that fall was Entrepreneurship, and the whole class was based on writing a business plan,” Brummel says. “We were assigned to groups and had to come up with a business to write a plan for. Well, luckily for me, I was able to talk the professor into letting my group do a business plan for Brummel Lawn and Landscape.”
He says he earned an A in the class and that business plan still sits behind his desk today.
“It is a reminder that this business started as two guys meeting in college, writing a business plan for a college class, to being one of the finest lawn and landscape companies in the Kansas City area,” Brummel says.
In 2006, Brummel and Ford started out with two trucks and a part-time employee and now the business has over 30 trucks and 80+ employees. He says they have achieved this growth through hard work and dedication.
“We have put Brummel Lawn and Landscape before friends, family, and ourselves to ensure we do what we need to do to make sure our clients are taken care of and happy,” he says. “The support from family has been amazing. It’s not easy to miss an event or be late to something to finish mowing a yard that was added late to the schedule and missed.”
He says their team is also why they have been so successful. The company’s business motto is ‘A partner to grow with’ as their niche is to be the company that every property manager, community manager and homeowner wants to work with.
“I see our pillars being that as we grow, we are able to grow our teammates to promote and develop,” Brummel says. “As our clients expand and take on new properties, we are here to grow with them.”
Brummel says they are there to meet the needs of their clients providing everything from the basic services to “we want this place to look like Disney.”
He says his favorite aspect of his job is meeting so many amazing people.
“I have met so many people that I look up to that are very important folks in the Kansas City area that I can call friends,” Brummel says. “I would have never had the opportunity to meet or get to know these people if it wasn’t for this job. It is also fun to watch our team members grow from starting out as a temporary worker to now running a department for us.”
He also enjoys giving back and being involved with NALP and government affairs.
“I really think the things we are doing now are going to shape the future of the industry and I am glad that I can be part of it,” he says.
As for where his company is headed next, Brummel says he knows they haven’t reached their full potential yet.
“If we had a strong manager that wanted to move to a new location, that might be on the table, so I guess stay tuned, as anything is possible!” Brummel says. “At the same time, we have a great company with great folks, and having a little more free time to spend with my wife and daughter Paige, who turned eight this year, might be the direction as time really does fly!”
This article was published in the Nov/Dec issue of the magazine. To read more stories from The Edge magazine, click here to subscribe to the digital edition.
