Metco celebrates 30 years Email
Tuesday, June 21, 2016 05:00 AM

Metco LandscapeMetco Landscape, Aurora, celebrates 30 years in business this year. Mark Tomko, CEO, got into the landscape industry after the stock market crash of the late 1980s, when he could no longer find work as a stockbroker. He began mowing lawns to earn a living, but Tomko says he still doesn’t know much about landscaping--he is a customer service and marketing guy.

For the first 12-plus years Metco took on projects, plodding along as a business and learning the hard way – as they went. It was not until 2001, when Tomko hired business consultant Greg Ritscher – now Metco’s director of training – that systems and processes were put in place. Revenue increased quickly after the company got organized.

Over time, Tomko has learned it is people that make the difference in business and that their value cannot be overstated.

“People are your only truly unique competitive advantage,” he says. “People with a shared vision are a powerful force. Put the right people in the right seats for the right reasons, and watch them run.”

As for financial management, Tomko says, “know your numbers and share appropriate numbers with others on the team.”

The economic downturn of 2007-2009 “taught everyone a lesson in cash management” when Metco’s revenue dropped by nearly half. The company didn’t have much debt and was able to emerge from the recession quite strong. It started growing again in 2010, and just a few years later, in 2014, Metco was selected as one of the top 100 landscape companies in the nation by Lawn and Landscape magazine.

Learning from the Metco’s ups and downs, Tomko recommends paying attention to economic cycles, and the impacts of seasonality and competitive pressure. He also advises watching demographic trends, which he says are too strong a current to swim against.

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