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Ever since he was a kid, Nelson Alvarado has been interested in mechanical maintenance and fixing things with his hands. However, for most of his life, he considered it just a hobby. When life threw him some curveballs 10 years ago, Alvarado was forced to make some tough decisions. He moved from the banking industry […]
Mari Medrano was 16 years old when she first started working in the office at CoCal Landscape Services, Inc., based in Denver, Colorado. She worked as an office assistant there and then left the industry for a time. She returned in 1998 while she was in college and started working in the field. “It was […]
Xochitl Lopez, recruitment and engagement manager at EarthWorks, Inc., based in Lillian, Texas, has been in the landscape industry for about six years now. Lopez’s background is in interior design, and she originally worked at Michaels stores before deciding to join EarthWorks in 2016. “When I worked with Michaels stores, I didn’t have any background […]
Tim Martinez, executive vice president of LandCare’s West division, has been in the green industry for over 30 years. He spent the first 20 years on the golf course maintenance and operations side before moving into commercial maintenance with LandCare. “My time in golf really gave me an appreciation for the technical aspects of the […]
Jesse Cardoza started helping his father in his lawn service business when he was eight years old. In the beginning, he had to find properties through a Mapsco book and used payphones for directions. When he was 15, he would work his father’s lawn maintenance route so they could go on vacations with his younger […]
Luis Mata, maintenance operations manager for Chalet Nursery, based in Wilmette, Illinois, was introduced to the industry at a young age as he started working with his father on a landscape crew throughout high school. “At one point I did not want to be involved in the industry,” Mata says. “I wanted to find something […]
Our Level Up series shares the strategies that help landscape and lawn care companies get to the next level. Maldonado Nursery & Landscaping, Inc. is one of the largest privately-owned Hispanic businesses in the United States. But this San Antonio, Texas, company wasn’t always so large. The business was founded to provide Rogelio Maldonado and […]
More than 500,000 Hispanic-Americans work in the landscape industry across the country. Pathways into landscape careers and business ownership are varied, but growth opportunities and a love of the outdoors fuels many Latinos’ longevity in the industry. How They Entered the Industry For Ray Rueda, CEO of Nature’s Dream Landscape, based in Pinecrest, Florida, he […]
Victoria Trucco studied architecture in Colombia and had wanted to earn a master’s degree in urbanism. However, her dual citizenship caused her to not be eligible for a scholarship at Penn State. “I had two small children and could not afford the private university for urbanism,” she says. Her husband, Ray Rueda, was relocated to […]
When Juan Gutierrez came to the United States from Mexico in 1999, he originally only planned to stay for one year so he could earn enough money to buy a truck or house in Mexico, like many of his friends had done. However, he quickly developed a passion for landscaping and decided his life was […]