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Photography by Sarah Harris Photography
Brandan Minor and Chris Denton do organic lawn care.
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Photography by Sarah Harris Photography
Brandon Minor, employed by Organic Green Lawn Care since 2004, says he “found a passion for this pretty quickly.” From the start, his personal goal has been to get as educated as possible about the field.
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Photography by Sarah Harris Photography
Organic Green Lawn Care has seen growth and success every year since 2001 and both men attribute that to a corps of long-time loyal employees dedicated to good customer service.
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Photography by Sarah Harris Photography
Chris and Kelly Denton are owners of Organic Green Lawn Care.
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Photography by Sarah Harris Photography
Brandon Minor and Chris Denton discuss their organic approach to low-nutrient lawn maintenance.
Fate doesn’t always care about the best-laid plans.
Brandan Minor was a junior in high school and, with an eye to the future, had already signed up for classes in marine mechanics when his mother mentioned to one of her clients that her 16-year old was looking for a job. The clients were Chris and Kelly Denton, owners of Organic Green Lawn Care, and Brandan was so young, he admits,
“I didn’t even know that kind of business existed.”
In fact, it hadn’t always, at least not on the Northern Neck or Middle Peninsula. Back in April 2001, Chris Denton had a brainstorm about creating an organic-based lawn care business with a personalized focus, one that would not compete with what he refers to as the “cookie cutter big companies.”
While he was aware that a couple of local businesses had tried the idea, they hadn’t fully committed to it nor stayed true to it, so they’d not been successful. He saw the key to making it work as twofold: finding a price point that worked for all kinds of customers and finding an area where people would be receptive to the idea.
Using a bedroom as a makeshift office and a lean-to in the backyard of their rental house in Gloucester for equipment storage, the couple mapped out a strategy.
“All organic-based lawn care wasn’t readily available like it is now, so starting off with that was kind of tough,” he recalls. Determined to stand out in a field of grass cutting and mulching businesses, he felt certain that residents of nearby water-focused communities would respond to environmental concerns.
“For the past 15 years, we’ve been a low nutrient company. What the state says is mandatory now, we were doing 15 years ago—reducing runoff into the Chesapeake Bay watershed,” he says, stressing how strongly he felt about doing his part. “I found a way to make organic work in the lawn care business before organic was cool.”
A big part of that was establishing a territory and concentrating on it. Unlike many such businesses, every lawn his business services is a custom job with a soil testing based treatment plan that is updated a minimum of once a year. “We never wanted to be so diverse in what we offered that we couldn’t give excellent customer service.”
The company’s goal was simply to build a product that lasted, that is, a thick, dense lawn that crowded out weeds naturally and needed little irrigation so it could withstand droughts and get stronger with time.
“We set out to make lawns the best they can be on riverbanks with all the evils of Mother Nature against them,” he says of the challenges inherent to waterfront lawns.
Despite starting out with nothing more than a small amount of money and a grand idea, Denton’s strategy worked. Today, 15 of his original 20 customers continue to use his service, along with 850 others.
Robert Trinko of Merry Point remembers coming on board as one of those original 20 and he’s watched the business grow since. “Chris came out 15 years ago, told me what they could do and we’ve been completely satisfied ever since,” he says. “If I call with a question, they’re ready with an answer.”
When Minor came aboard in 2004, neither he nor Denton could have anticipated what his role with Organic Green Lawn Care would become.
“I found a passion for this pretty quick,” he says from the company’s office in Topping. “I love the challenges. Out here, you get out in the field every day and solve problems. You have goals being in the lawn care business.”
A major personal goal was getting as educated as possible about the field. Denton proceeded to school him in the science of turf management. That was supplemented with classes, books and online research, all of which taught young Minor the intricacies of fertilization, materials and results.
“I taught him everything I know, and he’s taken it to a better level,” Denton insists. “You’ve got to keep up with technology and he’s cutting edge.” The dynamic duo of Denton and Minor worked hard, adding new customers, servicing long-time clients, and becoming very close friends while establishing a successful business.
Yet Denton recalls when people thought he was crazy doing what he was doing with organics, telling him that it would never work on the Northern Neck, that there were no McMansions, no big subdivisions, that it was too spread out.
“But you know what? I picked where I wanted to work,” he says. “I’ve been around water my whole life. I still feel blessed to go out and work on beautiful properties on the waterfront, knowing I can contribute to making it less polluted and keeping this area as beautiful as it is.”
Then in 2010, fate stepped in. Denton had begun feeling poorly enough in 2009 to seek a doctor’s opinion. A misdiagnosis led to a massive heart attack in 2010 and although he tried to work through it, the doctor warned him he would eventually need a heart transplant.
With the prospect of a day when he’d no longer be able to run the company, Denton knew he’d have to start thinking about a key man to succeed him. Minor was only 22.
“Brandan had to step up and help Kelly and that showed he could handle the stresses of running the business,” Denton says. “I showed him how to start taking more ownership of the business to help me and help himself. He took the bull by the horns and wrestled it to the ground.”
Shy by nature, Minor took it upon himself to gradually begin communicating with customers. From there, he set out to learn how to manage employees, create budgets, research and order products and do formulations for lawns.
“They’re very good business people and there’s so much I’ve learned from both of them,” Minor says. “He’s been grooming me the whole time, giving more and more of the responsibility to me. I learned from him what he set out to do—make things greener and cleaner than what other companies do. I don’t have a college education in this, but my results show what I’ve learned.”
After the heart attack, Denton initially pulled back, but later was able to work a limited schedule. Throughout it all, Minor picked up more of the slack and pushed the business forward. Over the past year, the Dentons began looking at plans for Minor to eventually take over the business.
“Can I see doing this for the rest of my working life?
Yes, I can,” Minor asserts.
In late June, Denton traveled to Richmond to have a left ventricular assist device, known as an LVAD, implanted. The battery-operated, mechanical pump helps the left ventricle—the main pumping chamber of the heart—pump blood to the rest of the body. At that point, his name went on the list for a heart transplant.
“Now Brandan’s job is keeping up with the business and my job is keeping up with heart pumps and medications,” Denton explains with a wry smile.
Ultimately, Minor and his wife Lisa will take over ownership of the business entirely, but that’s years off. With Denton occupied recovering from surgery, he’s focused on keeping the business strong and even making it stronger than before.
“This young man has become a more integral part of the business, gaining more responsibility each year for the past five years and now he’s the future of it because he’s been helping run it and run it well for those five years,” Denton says. “The business has gotten stronger because instead of one of me all stressed out, customers have another Chris out there who’s just as good as me.”
Customers, both agree, will never even notice the transition because Minor has been a point person and one of the faces of the business for years now. “If Brandan Minor is going to work his tail off and show ownership of this company, working 60-70 hours a week, he should get the benefits of the company,” Denton says passionately. “He’s earned the right to eventually own the company.”
But the situation also has the handprints of fate all over it.
“I feel lucky because I feel God has a plan for all of us,” Minor says. “I just wish it wasn’t this. My heart hurts because of the reason we’re doing it.”
Both acknowledge that eventually, they’d have transferred ownership anyway, but it might not have been as soon.
“My job is to get the stress off Chris so he can live as long a life as possible,” Minor says. “Ultimately, he’ll have a new heart. If it weren’t for this, he wouldn’t walk away because we’d be a duo that’s unstoppable. But our friendship will never separate.”
Organic Green Lawn Care has seen growth and success every year since 2001 and both men attribute that to a corps of long-time loyal employees dedicated to good customer service. “We couldn’t have done this well if we didn’t have the great supporting cast we have, guys who really care about our customers,” Denton says. Wife Kelly says they can’t ever be thankful enough for the loyalty of their customers and employees.
Denton agrees. “We picked our dream and made it work on our own terms and I’m very proud of that.”
For more information visit organicgreenlawn.com.