Photo: Todd Yarrington

Horticulture is in Mark Foertmeyer’s blood, and several passionate plantspeople crossed his path to cement his desire to work in the industry. Many years before starting Foertmeyer & Sons Greenhouse Co. in Delaware, Ohio, in 1988, Mark’s great-grandfather immigrated to Cincinnati from Germany and started a greenhouse business. Mark’s grandfather took it over when Mark was a young boy.

He recalls starting to work with his grandfather when he was only around 5 or 6 years old. “He had me propagating geraniums at that age,” Mark says. “I would do cuttings for him. I had a knife, [which] as a little boy was pretty cool. Was I his star employee? By no means. He was probably trying to figure out what he could do with me so he could get some work done.”

Mark was further inspired by his mother, an avid gardener who kept their lives filled with flowers. He started a vegetable garden when he was 8 or 9 and a lawnmowing business by age 11, both of which he kept up through high school. “It was just my destiny” to start a career in horticulture, Mark says, although “for some crazy reason, at one point in my life I thought I was going to be a dentist.”

When Mark started his studies at the Ohio State University Agricultural Technical Institute (ATI), his initial goal was to become a landscape architect. However, after a negative response to a forward-thinking landscape design he created, he decided to shift his focus. “I had been working then at a little arboretum [at ATI],” Mark says. “I had been doing cuttings and drawing stuff and helping them manage their greenhouse. I went over to Dr. Anderson who was, at the time, running the department. I said, ‘I want to transfer to your department. I think I’m more suited for growing plants.’”

At the time, the greenhouse management program at ATI in Wooster was run by three department heads from main campus, who would come up weekly to work with the three majors, one-on-one. Mark still thinks highly of the individualized, real-world education and experience he received during those years. “Everything was hands-on,” he says. “They would come in and it wasn’t so much a classroom setting, but we would be dealing with real issues, problems, diseases, insect problems and cultural issues with various plants. They just sort of rolled up their sleeves and worked along with us.”

Failure before success

The idea for Foertmeyer & Sons came out of a marketing class at ATI. During a discussion about the different ways to sell plants, the concept of selling plants as a school fundraiser was mentioned, with real-life examples. “I was hanging on every word because it really resonated with me,” Mark says. “At the end of the class he goes, ‘Somebody in here should really pursue this idea.’ It’s like a little hand inside of me raised up and said, ‘That will be me.’ That was back in 1977, maybe.”

People appreciating the value of plants is important. The plant is not the product that our industry provides - it’s what the plants do for people.

But it was many years before Mark would find success with his plant fundraiser idea. “I failed twice pretty soundly,” Mark remembers. “I finally decided I was going to learn how to do it by working for a fundraising company. I sold Wisconsin cheese and sausage for seven years.” Mark thrived in the role, but the idea for his future plant business was always in the back of his mind. In preparation, he purchased land for his yet-to-be-created company.

Then, a misfortunate turn of events turned into a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Mark got a call one night from his employer saying that the fundraising company was going bankrupt due to embezzlement. Despite contributing to one of the best years in sales in the company’s history, Mark was now unemployed. “I said, ‘Well that must mean tomorrow I start this greenhouse business, because there is no better time than now to do it,’” Mark says. “I started the next day. I sold a lot of it with just concepts. Then I put the necessary marketing materials together.” Nearly 30 years later, Foertmeyer & Sons is still going strong, with about 80 to 85 percent of its plants going to its fundraising programs.

Creating a family company

One of the lessons Mark learned while hawking Wisconsin cheese and sausage was that people prefer to work with a family company. In part due to that realization and in part in the hopes of bringing his children into the company in the future, Mark named the new company “Foertmeyer & Sons Greenhouse Co.” Now, he can truly say it’s living up to its name, as three of his sons — Eric, Matt and Dan — have joined the business.

While Dan Foertmeyer has officially worked at the company for nine years, “I’ve ‘worked’ here since I was 5 years old,” he jokes. “Growing up, we had our house and the greenhouse on the same property, so you’re always around the business, acting like you work, but not really working.” Dan remembers that he was paid 50 cents an hour to help out. “I equated that to one candy bar per hour,” he says. “It was really good for [our] development to be around it.”

Over the years, Mark has worked to balance family and career, which can be a challenge in an industry where the busiest times can be limited to a short period during the spring. “It would be nice if we could round our business out a little more; 12 months out of the year,” he says. “It’s kind of silly to have, in our business, the spring be so, so important that your livelihood almost hinges on if it rains or doesn’t rain on the weekends. We’ve got to get beyond that.”

When it comes his four sons, “I’ve been pretty intentional about that [balance],” Mark says. “When the kids were young I stayed involved in their lives. We’ve been active in church and I’ve tried to do some things with my sons from different leadership, mentoring courses.” And now that he’s a grandfather, he enjoys spending time with his grandkids when he can.

A father and a boss

Dan Foertmeyer was always “pretty sure” he’d join Foertmeyer & Sons after college, and is grateful for the opportunity to work in the family business. “That’s been a huge blessing, to have that security to be able to go to high school, go to college, graduate, get your degree, and know that you have an opportunity waiting for you,” he says. “That’s something that I don’t take for granted.” While Dan wasn’t always certain of what role he would like to take, he knew he wanted to come to work with his dad. “Growing up, I always knew I would enjoy working with him,” Dan says. “He wanted me to go to college [first], so I went and got my degree.”

Over the years, their working relationship has developed beyond a father-and-son dynamic, and the former has strengthened the latter. Dan appreciates that he has the chance to make decisions that will impact the company, and says that he considers his father to be “by far, his biggest mentor.”

“He’s always encouraged me to not be afraid to make decisions, to give my opinion, and to be able to make decisions alongside of him,” Dan says. “Not all the decisions worked out, but [it was useful] to be able to watch the good decisions that we’ve made together and watch the company grow, and also to learn from mistakes and realize that not everything’s perfect all the time. [However], if you have daily, open communication, you can grow together; you can create more jobs; you can create more opportunities for yourself and for other people.”

A friend and a mentor

Jared Hughes, owner of Groovy Plants Ranch and former retail manager at Foertmeyer & Sons, remembers well his first day of work and meeting Mark well. “I pulled up in my ridiculous muscle car as a teenager,” Jared says. “This was my first day of work and I pull up next to the owner, naturally. I felt the need to apologize for my loud jalopy, and he said, ‘I like that loud jalopy.’” Mark showed Jared around the property and started what has become 10 years of mentorship and friendship.

“Through the years, our relationship grew,” Jared says. “I expressed interest in the business and he certainly helped foster that. He started including me in more, and investing in me, which I think says a lot about his personality.” Even after Jared, 18 at the time, told Mark that he was going to start his own landscaping business, and potentially sell a few plants, Mark was supportive. “He totally encouraged me to do so, [even though] it’s easy for an employer to discourage that kind of growth and development in an employee,” Jared says. But Mark had the bigger picture in mind. “He didn’t hold back one ounce; he just poured it into me,” Jared remembers. “I think he always knew that I’d probably go do my own thing, but he saw it as more of a value to me and the industry as a whole by having more people in it, young people doing their thing. He’s been very much a mentor to me.”

“There are people you can work with and then there are people that you can’t,” Mark says. “The people that you can work with pull stuff out of you and tend to benefit from whatever inspiration or knowledge or wisdom you have.” Jared Hughes is a good example of someone he was able to mentor successfully. “We just resonate,” Mark says. “He’s pulled a lot out of me, [too].”

Trust and leadership

Mark is a hands-off leader, preferring to allow his staff the opportunity to find their own ways to accomplish the goals he gives them. “I like to give people room to do their thing,” he says. “I think almost too much sometimes, because then when I do start nosing around they get a little like, ‘What are you doing here?’ because they’ve been given so much freedom to do things,” he jokes.

Jared says that his employment at Foertmeyer & Sons was reflective of Mark’s faith in his employees. “One of [Mark’s] notable characteristics is that he believes in people,” Jared says. “I think a lot of business owners have trouble handing off responsibility because they want to have creative control over everything and micromanage. With me, for example, he really gave me the reins and said ‘Go for it.’ I would personally find that very difficult to do, as a business owner. But he really does believe in people. Allowing people to be self-directed and having faith in the individual to achieve the goal of the company? That’s a pretty unique characteristic.”

However, Mark knows the importance of leading by example. “People like the fact that we are pretty quality oriented,” Mark says. “We try to practice our craft and our art as growers. We take a lot of pride in what we do and I think that’s contagious.”

Mark recognizes his own strengths as well as areas where it would be better to hire someone who has a different skillset. Mark considers himself to be more of a visionary and risk taker. “I’m an idea person,” he says. “I wouldn’t say I’m impractical, but I’m not all that cautious, so I’ll move into things [quickly] where other people are far more practical or organized. I just get done what needs to be done.”

“He’s a really creative mind and someone that a lot of people in the industry admire,” Dan Foertmeyer says. “I think people know and respect him and his ability to make creative decisions.”

“Mark’s always got an idea cooking, some grand new vision,” Jared says. “He’s very creative and innovative, always trying to think of new ways to add value to the industry, new approaches, new ways of doing things.”

However, when it comes down to operations and logistics, Mark relies on others who excel at those tasks. “Fortunately, my son Daniel is very talented in operations and helps me a lot. [My son] Matt is a really good grower, so I don’t have a lot to worry about there,” he says.

Photo: Todd Yarrington

Dan says that, while he still allows employees to do their jobs without heavy oversight, he’s seen his father’s leadership evolve in recent years. “He’s become very hands-on, very excited about our business, very eager to make changes that he feels are needed,” he says. “It’s been very refreshing to have that, and it’s something that definitely elevated our company on every single level. I would describe [him] as [being] very passionate, never satisfied with what we’re doing, always continuing to want to improve, which I think is absolutely necessary in today’s workplace, and what customers want.”

Leading the industry through change

When he’s not in the greenhouse, Mark lends his leadership skills within the industry. He served as the president of former industry organization OFA, and more recently, as the first chairman of the board of AmericanHort, a merger between OFA and the American Nursery and Landscape Association (ANLA). Lisa Graf of Ohio-based Graf Growers served on the board with Mark through the transition. Lisa says that Mark’s contributions were crucial, especially his skill for collaboration and ability to bring people together. “You could take two different groups of people that have some difference of opinion and he has this incredible ability to pull out the best of both groups and put it into perspective verbally,” Lisa says. “A lot of times, he was the one that brought the group together.”

While Mark says that the members of the AmericanHort board were “equally sharing that burden and trying to figure out how we’re going to do this,” Lisa says that Mark’s contributions went above and beyond. “Honestly, just serving on that committee was above and beyond,” she says. “There was a lot of personal sacrifice, lots of time went into it, travel that we paid for ourselves. [Mark] spent a lot of time on that, outside of the meetings, even.” Lisa remembers that when Mark became the chairman of the board, he didn’t know some of the ANLA people that he would be serving on the board with, such as Dale Deppe, president of Spring Meadow Nursery and the board’s vice chair.

“Mark actually drove to Michigan to have dinner with Dale, to get to know him better so that they could work together better for the benefit of the industry,” Lisa says. “This was all Mark’s initiative to do it, and I think that says a lot about Mark.” Going further, Lisa says Mark’s dedication and persistence throughout the transition were vital to its success. “There were a lot of unknowns going into that first year, and I think he stayed very engaged to get a pulse, not just with the board, but also with other members, people that he knew,” she says. “He was reaching out to industry professionals all over in addition to just serving on the board, to try to make sure that it was a smooth transition.”

Jared says that Mark is a great advocate for the industry, its events, conferences and educational opportunities. “He’s always there and he strongly advocates for them to the point where he sent me to every Cultivate, and before that, OFA Short Course [when I worked for him],” Jared says. “Not only was he supporting me through that, but he was supporting those programs by giving them his dollars. I think that illustrates his level of commitment to the industry and its functions.”

Unparalleled passion for plants. The passion Mark has for the industry stems in part from his deep love for plants. “I’m amazed by plants,” he says. “I study the plants we grow pretty closely and I appreciate color. I appreciate their structure, function, and fragrances. I really do like plants as a medium, and I like to share that with people.”

Jared has witnessed this firsthand. “The guy really loves plants,” he says. “I think it’s easy to get this tunnel vision where all the plants are the same. Mark genuinely gets excited about every new verbena that comes out. He’s a true plantsman, a great advocate, and he really loves the entire industry.”

One of the reasons Foertmeyer & Sons has a retail store is to retain that direct contact with customers, Mark says. “I love to see something in somebody’s car and say, ‘Boy, you made some good choices here and I think you’re going to see this happen with your plant, and you’re going to watch these butterflies come in,’ etc.” Mark explains. “I think people want to be inspired and informed, [they] want to know what we know and what we think. That’s a big part of our job.”

Sharing that passion for plants with community is a focus at Foertmeyer & Sons, even if it’s not through sales at their retail store. “Any time we get an opportunity to try to give back or make a donation of plants or services, we do that,” Dan Foertmeyer says. “Our business is very community-related. We’re a company that realizes that we thrive off the community.”

‘Providing meaningful living through horticulture.’ One of the messages the company wants to communicate with the local community and beyond is that plants provide real value to people’s lives, Mark says. It’s why the company’s slogan is “Providing meaningful living through horticulture.”

“People appreciating the value of plants is important,” Mark says. “The plant is not the product that our industry provides — it’s what the plants do for people. They enhance the environments; whether it’s some spectacular color in one living area or some relaxing foliage in another, they make the environment more meaningful.”

However, Mark says it’s easy to become a simple grower of plants in pots and lose sight of that meaning. “It’s one of the reasons younger people coming into the industry don’t consider us as a viable option — we have commoditized ourselves,” he says. “They are more interested in having a career like an attorney or a doctor, something in technology. Those guys do a much better job defining what they really provide.” Mark believes that once the industry improves its ability to communicate the value of plants, it will help elevate the industry and attract the next generation of growers that it resonates with. It’s about more than squeezing more plants into a greenhouse or producing plants more efficiently. “What value are we really bringing?” Mark asks. “We’re the last to come to that realization often. The public almost gets it more than we do; we’re just doggone good producers.”

Mark’s advice to young professionals considering the horticulture industry is related to this concept. “I would encourage them to understand the value of what we do,” he says. “That would help them develop in the right way and not get pulled into just producing units. We’re not just production people here, we are growing something that’s really nice, valuable and well-crafted. It’s a great platform for us to continue to talk about value to the customers.”

“A lot of people are passionate about the industry, but their passion is about the industry as they know it, where Mark is so passionate for the future of the industry and future leaders in the industry,” Lisa says. “He really gets to know a lot of the younger people in the industry and encourages them. There aren’t a lot of people that do that as well as Mark does.”

The future of Foertmeyer & Sons

In the coming years, Mark sees the potential to scale his fundraising business up and bring partner growers in to fill the additional production needs. However, the future of the business — and the industry as a whole — depends on whether or not a new generation of gardeners is created. And Mark says that we need to reach future gardeners at a very young age. “Just look at my own life,” he says. “There I was, probably 4 years old, making cuttings, and two weeks later I would go back and spend the weekend at my grandparents’ house, and my grandpa would say, ‘I want to show you what’s going on with those cuttings you stuck.’ He would pull them out and they’d have roots. I can remember the first time I saw it. It literally blew my mind, but it left an incredible impression on me that that could happen.”

Mark would like to develop some curriculum for schools to better understand the value of plants and actually bring plants into the classroom. “I think it’s really important to start [exposing children to plants] as early as possible,” he says, such as during preschool or elementary school. “I do know from talking to the teachers and principals and parents, that there is opportunity there.”

As for his own career, Mark is also looking to the future. “I’m thinking that I’ve got maybe 10 more years and then I’m going to probably start growing plants again in my own little greenhouse,” he says.

Photo: Cartherine Taylor

Gary Hennen’s love of tropical plants started when he was a teenager growing up in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The now-president of Oglesby Plants International, a young plant company specializing in tissue culture propagation in Altha, Florida, developed a fascination with orchids. “I started collecting orchids and then eventually I started collecting rare tropical plants,” Gary says. He worked part-time at the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS), where he worked with the ornamental horticulturist. This served as inspiration to pursue a master’s degree in horticulture.

After obtaining a master’s degree with a focus on tissue culture in 1978, Gary went to work for a large tropical plant nursery in West Palm Beach, Florida. There, he learned how to start the commercial tissue culture propagation process, in addition to “growing plants outside, growing young plants, [and] loading trucks at night.”

His interest and skill with tissue culture led Ray Oglesby to offer Gary the position of laboratory manager at Oglesby Plants International in 1982. It was a dynamic time to be in tissue culture production, and Oglesby was one of more than 25 producers in Florida at the time vying for a top spot in the market. “Tissue culture is a wonderful process for propagating plants,” Gary says. “There are a lot of great benefits to it in getting products out faster and cleaner, and generally high quality. The fact that everybody started to get into the game just made Ray Oglesby and myself work harder to prove that this could be a viable business.”

Lessons in leadership

The path from laboratory manager to owner of Oglesby Plants International wasn’t always a smooth one, but Gary says the “leader among leaders” that was Ray Oglesby taught him a great deal about how to get there. “Ray was my mentor. He gave me great opportunities, not only to own a company,” Gary says. “Eventually I became an owner in Oglesby Plants International, but I started off as his laboratory manager and through his mentorship I grew in my abilities.”

One of the leadership lessons that stuck with Gary was Ray Oglesby’s willingness to let Gary take risks — even when they didn’t always work out as planned. “He allowed me to make a lot of mistakes on his nickel and he would yell once and then we would move on,” Oglesby remembers. “He was a leader among leaders as far as I was concerned, and he taught me an awful lot about the business and philosophies that he had developed. Now, Oglesby is celebrating its 70th year in business. He had a long run before me and we’ve had a long run since.”

Gary’s business philosophies have also been shaped by Ray. “He always told me ‘Don’t look in the rearview mirror. If you look in the rearview mirror you’re looking backwards. Continue to look forward. Don’t worry about what the guys behind you are doing,’” Gary reminisces. “That philosophy has continued with me. I try to look forward and not look back. I might take a peek every now and then, but [I] keep looking forward; keep innovating; keep changing with the markets — and the hard part is to keep changing as the markets need you to change. If you don’t you become a dinosaur.”

Gary will be the first to tell you that the success of a business isn’t dependent on one person- the leader. “You can’t do it all yourself,” he says. “Yes, okay, I’m considered the owner, president of Oglesby Plants International, but in many cases I’m a referee. I’m a coach. I’m the one who is directing the band, but I’m not doing it by myself. Whatever we do every day, it’s always a team effort.”

To build the company to its present success, Gary always strived to fill the company with top-notch employees and support them as they grew. “My philosophy of leadership is to hire good people and let them work and be creative, let them make mistakes now on my nickel, and try to be available at all times to help when they have questions,” he says. “I try to let people be creative, [because] that’s one of the things that Ray Oglesby did with me. He kind of showed me the rules and showed me what we do, but then there was nothing that said you couldn’t be creative, you couldn’t try something new.”

Gary encourages employees to try new things and look for different ways to approach products and situations. “The worst thing you could ever say to me is, ‘Boss, we’ve always done it this way,’” he says. “I hate that saying. I like to think that I give people enough space to be creative and for them to grow in their careers as well.”

“Family first” is another one of Gary’s mottos for employees. “If there is a family need or crisis, we’re always there to help the employees,” he says.

When asked what his biggest accomplishment has been in his 35 years at Oglesby, Gary says that it’s maintaining the company as a top plant producer in tissue culture and young plants, but also making it a viable business for his employees. He’s proud that they’ve made it “a stable place for people to work and be creative and not have to worry about their paychecks, whether they’re coming next week or not.”

“My biggest accomplishment is keeping 90 people employed even through a deep recession and coming out of the recession with new vigor and new hope that we can continue this, create new plants, get new customers and make everybody happy,” he says.

“I [also] try to look at some of these very large companies and Google’s and the Microsoft’s and how do they let their people be creative. What do they do?”, he asks. “Now naturally we don’t have a Starbuck’s in the back where our employees can go, or a large exercise room, but some of the ideas they bring to the table on how to inspire their employees, this is where I try to look at how they do things and try to implement it on a much smaller scale here.”

Industry viewpoints

Gary’s leadership and dedication to the industry isn’t only noticed within the walls of Oglesby. “The way Gary has run Oglesby sets the bar for the entire industry at a very high level,” says David Fell, president of Hawaiian Sunshine Nursery, who has done business with Gary for 30 years. “I think the success of Oglesby Plants International is adequate testimony of his leadership skills. He’s easy to work with, intelligent, funny and an all-around nice guy. He has been an excellent role model, friend, mentor, vendor and business colleague and my life is richer for him being in it.”

Although Dave Dagen, a former Oglesby colleague and the current general manager of Creek Hill Nursery, hasn’t worked with Gary for several years, he remembers vividly how Gary’s guidance impacted him and the company. “When I wasn’t sure which way to go, I’d give [Gary] the options and we’d work through it,” Dagen says. “He’s a good friend and a reliable person that employees could talk with openly and frankly and discuss things without any concern. [The employees had] total trust in him and his leadership.”

“You might call him a bit of the quiet leader,” says Randy Strode, president of AgriStarts, a “very friendly competitor” of Oglesby. Randy has known Gary since 1975. “He’s not the one that likes to be out in the forefront and be president of any national organization,” Randy says. “He’s just very supportive and has been on a lot of the boards and committees.”

Gary, as a part of Oglesby Plants International, has been a longtime and active member of the Florida Nursery, Growers and Landscape Association (FNGLA). In 2012, Gary won the Wendell E. Butler Award, FNGLA’s most prestigious award. “The FNGLA has been a great experience for me, and has allowed me to interact with a lot of other people in the industry, people a lot smarter than myself,” Gary says. “I highly recommend it.”

He has also served on the board of the Tropical Plant Industry Exhibition (TPIE) event, including a time as chairman. In addition, Gary has been “involved with the National Foliage Foundation, (NFF) which is now the National Horticulture Foundation (NHF), which helps distribute funds for scholarships,” he says. Joe Cialone, a colleague who has worked with Gary for many years on the NFF/NHF, says that his work with Gary has allowed him to get to know Gary as a leader in the industry. “Gary is one of these people who is constantly looking to make the industry better in any possible way,” Joe says. “He’s done everything unselfishly. I think everybody in the industry that’s ever had contact with him, as a customer, a vendor or in other areas, such as NHF, has great respect for Gary and what he stands for.”

Time to change

Change isn’t easy, and oftentimes leaders may shy away from taking risks and implementing changes for fear of failure. However, Oglesby Plants International has undergone significant changes over the years, many of which Gary was a part of. Oglesby started as an outdoor landscape grower of woody ornamentals, introduced tissue culture propagation and now exclusively grows young plants, specializing in propagation. They’ve also shifted from being a major tropical foliage plant producer and breeder to also introducing perennials and ornamental grasses. “We are celebrating 70 years, but if Ray Oglesby could see the company today, it would be a very different company than it was 20 or 30 years ago,” he says.

Gary stresses the importance being cognizant of the changes going on around you. “I stay aware of what’s going on and don’t panic,” he says. “Be aware of the events that are going on in your community and the world, that may or may not affect you.”

The risks Gary has taken over the years have paid off for Oglesby. But how does he know when it’s the right moment? “I think it’s a gut thing. Sometimes it’s a glaring, bright light out there that you know you need to get to, but other times it’s just pure risk,” he says. “You roll the dice and hope that it’s right. A successful company has more wins than losses and luckily for us we’ve had more wins than losses.”

Tough times

When tissue culture production was in its infancy in the late ’70s-80s, “if it was a tissue culture plant, you could sell it,” Gary says. But around 1982, the market was overwhelmed with product from 26 companies, only one of which still remains today: Oglesby Plants International. “The people that failed, failed to figure out that this is a business and not a hobby,” Gary says. “But if you have a good reputation and you have the wherewithal to stay through the tough times, then the good times are even better.”

More recently, the Great Recession that started in the late 2000s was the biggest threat to Oglesby. Gary explains that getting through it “wasn’t pretty,” but they made it through in the end. “That five to six year framework was one of the most difficult times for me personally and for the company,” Gary says. “I was not used to a company that was shrinking. We were always growing, and during that period we started to shrink and I didn’t know how to act. Luckily, I had some good friends and some peers in the business and we talked it through and maybe [had] a little panic here and there, but we managed to muscle through. We cut back where we needed to, reduced employments slightly, and made it through. Now things are looking much, much better.”

While Randy and Gary may head up companies that directly compete in some categories, they have teamed up for the greater good in the past, and Randy says that being friendly competitors is “wonderful.” “We try and help each other out where we can, when we can,” Randy says. He gives the example of when the Affordable Care Act was mandated. Both companies were unsure how to proceed and worked together for two years to figure out how their respective companies could both comply and stay financially solvent. “It’s no fun when you’re bitter enemy competitors,” Randy says, adding that he and Gary have lunch every year at TPIE. “We’ve been friends from day one and stayed friends over the years and helped each other out in various, numerous ways.”

This resilience and willingness to adapt to changing market conditions is part of what makes Gary a respected leader. “Gary’s experienced a lot of volatility and the up or down years, [and] it’s the same for him — he’s very good at evening out things for the company through challenges,” Dagen says. “He has led the company very steadily since Ray Oglesby entrusted him in that position. Oglesby has garnered a lot of respect because of Gary’s leadership.”

Thoughts on the future. Where does Gary see himself in the next 10 years? “I would like to keep my hand in part of the business and retirement is definitely in my future,” he says. “I’m working hard, trying to make sure that the management is in place for those type of transitions, and my partners are younger than myself.” However, he’s experienced firsthand how challenging the labor market can be. “It is difficult finding young people who are interested in this industry,” Gary says. “We’re trying to find young people to help us out and to keep the company young, but eventually transition has to happen and I have to have a plan for doing that.”

If given the opportunity, he would tell young professionals this about the horticulture industry: “There are some cool jobs in horticulture; there are some dirty jobs; there are some sweaty jobs; and you’re gonna have to do them all with the goal to grow to the point where you become a manager or a creator of some type and you work hard. It’s a good career. There are good people in this industry and it could become a good living for you as well.”

Oglesby offers scholarships, internships and summer employment to those interested in horticulture, and gives tours to schools and community and agriculture groups, all in the hopes of encouraging more people to become a part of the horticulture industry.

Gary sees many changes on the horizon for the next decade. “In 10 years, I think the technologies are going to change. We’re going to be talking about cannabis as part of the horticulture industries, and that industry alone could be the driving force in a lot of new technological innovations.”

But the one constant he sees is change. “What I can say is that I would expect change, because change is always there. Every year there are changes,” he says. “The customers come and go. The plants are new and different. The economy is always a challenge. My prediction over the next 10 years is there will be change.” And Gary is ready to lead Oglesby Plants International through whatever may come his way.

Newly married, new to Tennessee, and lacking even an ounce of horticulture knowledge, Terry Hines shook hands with J.T. Hale, his new father-in-law, and started Hale & Hines Nursery in 1978. It was an intimidating experience, but Terry put his faith into action and set out to learn all he could about the nursery industry.

“I’d grown up in Southern Illinois — I’d never been in agriculture, much less on a tractor, prior to coming to Tennessee,” Terry says. “I was a city boy, a music major with a fine arts degree in music education and performance.”

Terry met the love of his life, Johnnie, in college, and he followed his bride to her family home. Terry had plans to start his own small business one day.

“When my father-in-law learned about my plans, he said to me, ‘There’s an empty farm for sale. Do you want to try the nursery business?’ I agreed, and we started the nursery,” Terry recalls.

His new business partner didn’t have any nursery production experience, but he did grow up on a farm. And he’d been a successful businessman prior to starting the nursery. The pair also gathered some knowledge and advice from area nurserymen.

“Some people were willing to share information with us. But we had the advantage of not having the ‘we’ve always done it that way’ mindset,” Terry says.

Hale & Hines Nursery sold primarily field-grown shade and ornamental trees, all balled and burlapped material, on 10 acres in the beginning.

For the next several years, Terry put in serious sweat equity, made several astute observations, implemented numerous improvements to production practices, and above all, found that he loved the nursery industry.

“When you find something that you really like, or even love doing, it’s not cumbersome to get up in the morning and go to work. You look forward to it,” Terry says.

Almost 40 years later, Terry loves the diversity of the work, the plants, and the continued opportunities to learn and innovate.

“In this industry, you really have an opportunity to try something new, and see what works, and modify something you’ve seen. That gives you some creative outlet,” Terry explains. “We’re part of a really great family in this industry — it’s such a family-oriented industry — and you get the chance to build relationships with customers, suppliers and peers. There’s not many other industries like it with that much personal interaction and relationship building.”

Even as a new business owner and new nurseryman, Terry’s goal was to supply a quality product at a fair price to meet a demand. And in life, his goal was to be known as a person of integrity, and to be principled, ethical and honest. He looks to his Christian faith and lessons in the Bible to help shape his values. He lives by Colossians 3: 23-24 — 23Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, 24 since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. (New International Version)

“People recognize when you’re working for the Lord and not for yourself or any other man, whether it’s your boss, your customer, or anyone you come in contact with,” Terry says.

Being honest not only keeps you out of trouble, but it builds solid and long-lasting relationships, he notes.

“As long as you’re truthful with everyone, you don’t have to remember what you said,” he says.

Prayer and thanksgiving are integral parts of Terry’s life. Each day the staff gathers to say a word of prayer before lining out work.

“I try to always be thankful. Complaining is the opposite of thankful.”

A new realm

In 1998, J.T. Hale sold his ownership in the nursery to Terry.

“My father-in-law was a great partner. He was a good businessman and he had good business sense. He was a conservative business owner, and he was quite helpful to me as I learned to be a better business owner and manager,” Terry says.

Although Terry’s dad died while he was attending college, he learned self-confidence from his father — a trait that served him well as a new business owner learning the ropes of an unfamiliar industry, and as a seasoned nurseryman trying new production practices.

Much like that first foray into the nursery industry, by 2003 Terry was about to implement pot-in-pot production after growing B&B trees exclusively for 25 years. That same year, Terry’s son James joined the company. The nursery started with 15-, 30- and 45-gallon containers. But Terry didn’t go into the change lightly. He researched it and met with other industry colleagues to learn about the process.

“I tend to be cautious, and I really think on things for a while before making a major change like we did with container production,” Terry says. “I probably looked at it for a year, and we visited with people such as Charlie Parkerson at Lancaster Farms and Tom Demaline at Willoway Nurseries. They were so willing to share how they managed container production.”

The market was calling for more container trees, and Terry needed to act.

“Our business has always been blessed to have a good demand for the product we grow, and there was an increased demand in the market for container trees. Mainly because people didn’t want to inventory as much B&B material as they used to,” he explains.

Innovation station

At the start of their new container venture, Terry and his team modified a tree planter to install the PNP systems. They tried a second machine, but it was too slow and had too many moving parts, he says. Finally, they had a machine custom built to “plant” the pots instead of drilling holes for the sockets, which greatly increased efficiency of the labor-intensive project. The custom machine is pulled with a tractor.

Terry’s ability to modify and improve a process or piece of equipment is well-known in area nursery circles.

“He’s a very intelligent individual and he can do anything,” says Fred Shadow of Tennessee Valley Nursery in Winchester, Tenn., who sold Terry the first group of trees he ever planted. “He’ll look at what somebody’s doing and figure out how to improve it. He’s sharp and he’s innovative.”

Terry has implemented other innovations at the nursery, with a strong emphasis on irrigation. The nursery’s irrigation system from Tucor, a “smart” two-wire system, is state of the art and precise.

“We now water by variety with four different watering schedules depending on the variety,” he explains. “It’s got really good instrumentation, and can sense when the tree needs water and went to turn itself on and off.”

The pulse irrigation system has reduced water consumption by 20 percent.

“By measuring volumetric water content, we can look on our computer and see how much water has been applied and how it relates to things like variety or sun exposure, for example,” he says.

Terry is no stranger to irrigation innovations. For five years, the nursery was an industry partner in a USDA study, led by John Lea-Cox with the University of Maryland, that researched irrigation sensors and technology. With assistance from Lea-Cox, Terry installed his own Decagon sensor network in 2009 to monitor substrate water content primarily in his dogwood blocks. In spring 2010, an additional 6-node (30-sensor) research network was installed on three red maple trees. Eight 10-HS sensors were placed in each rootball at cardinal directions (North, East, South and West) at two depths. Terry wanted to use his networks to actually monitor water applications and leaching by making some simple modifications to the outer socket pot. As a result, two ECRN-50 rain gauges were added to each tree to measure the applied irrigation volume from the irrigation emitter and the leachate from each tree. Terry had a weather node that provided him environmental data on a 5-minute basis. By monitoring the eight sensors placed in the upper and lower quadrants of these trees, he monitored soil moisture by depth and throughout the season in real-time, relating this information to irrigation frequency and duration, or volume of application.

“We received lots of information on how to make good irrigation decisions from that study,” he adds.

Terry has been experimenting with drones to help with tasks at the nursery, a technology that will take off soon throughout the industry, he predicts.

“I think drone technology has some tremendous potential,” he says. “I think it will be ideal for inventory management, indicating plant stress and mapping for expansion. We’re doing some of these things on an experimental basis, but we’re anxious to hear about Jim Robbins’ drone study at another nursery. We may also be able to check on individual spray stakes in the pots with drones.”

Terry doesn’t rest on his laurels. He’s constantly thinking about the next way to improve functions and practices.

“My dad continually tries to think of ways to automate the industry and he’s continually making things more efficient,” says son John Hines, who joined the family business in 2006. “He pushes himself to make the business more profitable, even when you think he can’t do anything more.”

Son James concurs.

“When he finds that new technology or piece of equipment, he openly shares it with anyone,” James adds.

Terry and his team look for ways to increase efficiency at every turn. The nursery created its own concrete plant and pours its own concrete, builds structures in-house and builds most of its infrastructure.

After exhaustive research, Terry chose an Italian-made injection-molded container with handles for easier management, and they are heavy duty and built to last.

“We’ve got some sockets that we’ve been using since 2003. That’s how much they hold up,” he says.

Frank Sharum, owner of Sharum Landscape and Design in Fort Smith, Ark., calls Terry “the top container grower in the country.”

“He’s on the cutting-edge of just about everything. He has an amazing operation, and he has production down to an art,” Sharum says.

Photo: Dean Riggott

It’s a story that begins in a small town in Iowa in the summer of 1980. Two young, passionate horticulturists had just graduated college, gotten married, and moved back to the town of Cresco, Iowa, and were looking to take the next step in their professional lives—buy a greenhouse operation. Mike, alongside his new wife, Rachel, caught wind of a greenhouse for sale about 90 miles away, and brought the deal back to Cresco to discuss with the owner of Cresco Greenhouses, Arnie Kubalsky. The answer that Mike received when he asked if it was a good deal wasn’t what he expected: “I’m 61 and a half. You are my exit strategy.” About a week later, Mike and Rachel Gooder were the new owners of Cresco Greenhouses, which became Plantpeddler, a name that Mike came up with back in college. And so began the start of what has become a very successful career for Mike Gooder.

A milk carton, a seed and some soil

Mike was nudged into horticulture by many small events, the first of which happened during his first year of school, when he planted a French marigold seed in a milk carton. “I remember planting that seed, watching it grow,” he says. “I was lucky enough I planted it on the corner of the house and it got well-watered with [our] bulldog’s slobber. I remember that fall, that marigold was huge and at that moment I think I was hooked. And to this day we donate lots of products to schools for that very reason — to touch a kid. I think it’s instrumental for our future.”

As a teenager, Mike became involved with the FFA and managed the new high school greenhouse and entered FFA competitions. Up until that point, his goal had been to become a Department of Natural Resources officer and go into wildlife biology, but the greenhouse experience proved very influential.

During his time at Iowa State University, he met Rachel in a turf grass course. Rachel, an avid golfer, frequently missed their Friday classes for her tournaments, and she asked Mike to take notes for her. One summer, they worked at a golf course together because that was one of Rachel’s goals. However, that was all the time it took to decide their professional path should not end at the golf course, but at a greenhouse operation. Just after graduation and only about a week after getting married, they got the keys to what would become Plantpeddler.

Plantpeddler started out with a small retail location, and soon added another store, and more greenhouse space to support them. The extra space enabled them to add a wholesale division, which is 98 percent of their business today.

A green partnership

For many couples, it’s difficult to imagine both living and working with your spouse. However, Mike says, “Rachel and I haven’t known anything different,” and that it has worked out well for them. He and Rachel have distinct roles in the business based on their individual strengths and goals. Mike is on the sales and marketing side, while Rachel is in production, spending most of her time out in the greenhouse.

“We’ve had our issues,” Rachel says. “Every couple does. But we pretty much agree with the day-to-day operations and agree with what are the things we want to do. It’s easier for us to express our opinion to each other because he’s not my boss — he’s my partner. If we’re planning on expanding or we’re planning on adding different crops, it’s easier for us to talk about it because I’m going to tell him the truth and he’s going to tell me the truth. Because I can’t go home and gripe about my boss because I’d be griping to him.”

The strength of this partnership has played an important role in Plantpeddler’s success. “He and Rachel are like peanut butter and jelly,” Jeff Warschauer, vice president of Nexus Greenhouse Systems, says. “They are a team. Absolutely a team.”

The Gooders’ son, John, has been working at the greenhouse for the past three years since he graduated from Iowa State University with degrees in greenhouse management and horticulture, and a minor in ag entrepreneurial studies. “They’re both hands-on as owners,” John says. “They’re both not afraid to work their tail off. Where dad is more of the face of the company, mom’s been kind of behind the scenes, making sure that it’s doing what it’s supposed to be doing and getting us to where we’re going.” While he’s excited to one day take over the business, John says his parents will leave big shoes to fill.

It’s not work

Mike Gooder’s passion is horticulture, and it drives him to lead Plantpeddler to be the best it can be. “I think the thing that sums it up easiest, and I’ve heard this from my wife and kids, is I don’t think it’s work,” he says. “Sure, there are days where you get a little stressed, but I’ve never had a day in my life that I can recall that I got up and dreaded going to the greenhouse. I find it very motivating. I enjoy the constant challenge of managing the business — managing the crop mix, managing the customer, managing the financial side.”

Mike’s energy and drive to continually improve Plantpeddler is something that Rachel sees every day. “Mike lives and breathes horticulture and is passionate about the business,” she says. “He never stands still. He’s always looking to the future and how to progress with our business.”

“He really is in it for the love of the game,” says Christopher Currey, assistant professor of horticulture at Iowa State University. “The guy loves plants, he loves being a greenhouse grower, he loves his wife, kids, family business and northeastern Iowa. Whatever Mike does, he does it with passion and enthusiasm.”

“When spending time with Mike, his passion for both horticulture and business is obvious,” says Jeffrey Boeke, a lifelong friend of Mike’s. “To put it simply, he lives and breathes it.”

Warschauer relates Mike ’s relationship with horticulture to a marriage. “The difference with Mike is that every day [his career is] a new marriage for him,” he says. “It’s past the handholding and the first kiss. He’s so passionate about what he does. [There’s] that old saying, that if you don’t really love what you do, you may do okay with it, but you’re not going to be the best in the business. You have to wake up every day with excitement.”

Supporting the horticulture community

Mike’s love of horticulture fuels a drive to ensure the future success of the horticulture industry, not just Plantpeddler’s. Stemming from his early FFA experience, he continues to support the organization and its local chapters, and believes the industry’s labor force issues could be eased by supporting FFA.

“The FFA of today has its largest membership ever,” Mike says. “That’s a big audience for us. Labor is the biggest problem, yet we have a pool of people that are in FFA. We need to be instrumental as an industry and help elevate horticulture as being a good career path for people, explain and tell that story to kids, especially in FFA because they have an ag interest. Hopefully, down the road [it will] appease some of our leadership and management situations that we’re faced with within the business.”

ISU, the Gooders’ alma mater, has also benefited greatly from Mike’s generosity. “[Mike] unequivocally offered support to my research project at Iowa State just because he wants to see the ISU Department of Horticulture do well,” Christopher says. Not only has Mike donated plant material for Christopher’s research and helped him promote ISU programs, but Mike is invested in the future of horticulture, Christopher says. “I hear him voicing concerns and asking questions about the greater industry and not just Plantpeddler and his bottom line,” Christopher says. “‘Where is the next generation of growers?’ [Mike asks], not just the growers of Cresco, Iowa. [He wants to know] how we get more students interested in majoring in horticulture and beyond that, specializing in greenhouse crop production.”

In the years that Warschauer has known Mike, he’s also known him to be very aware of what’s going on around him. “He’s a very strong community person,” he says.

Mike is an active participant in industry groups and events, as well as being involved with local events, and ISU for the past 15 years. “Most recently, I really enjoyed my time with AmericanHort,” he says. “I had been a member of the OFA, back when it was still the OFA, since high school. Locally, I’ve been involved in events [like] AgFest, I’ve been president of the Cresco Chamber of Commerce and [have done] a lot of public speaking, both in and outside of horticulture.” He also runs Plantpeddler’s Variety Day, which showcases their trial gardens and provides educational lectures by plant breeders and industry experts, such as Mike.

How to be a star plantpeddler

Leading a successful young plant company is no exact science, but fortunately Mike has the drive and personality to serve as a strong leader and support his employees without micromanaging. “I’m pretty laid back in my management style and I let key people in the company run it,” Mike says. “I’m the guy at the top that helps steer and give direction.” And some of Plantpeddler’s employees have been with them since the beginning. Now that his children are older, Mike is enjoying being on the road more again. He says his greatest satisfaction is that the place runs best when he’s gone, because that means he’s done a good job leading the company so far.

One of Mike’s leadership philosophies is: “Never limit yourself by knowing where the edges of the box are.” It’s a nod to his desire to keep improving the company, even when the changes might be expensive, unfamiliar or risky. Plantpeddler has grown almost every major ornamental crop, but “we have failed” at just about all of them, Mike says. “But as I tell my staff, in baseball if you have a winning record, it might be 51-49, but you still won,” he says. “You’re not going to make all good decisions; you’re going to make bad decisions along the way. But as long as we learn from every one of those mistakes, it will drive us to our goals.”

Another sports-themed guiding principle came from Plantpeddler’s CPA, Joan Leuenberger, when she came in for her first interview. “One of the first lines that she told me is, ‘Mike, you can only have so many players on the team; you’ve got to have the best players,’” he recalls. “I think about that all the time.”

Mike’s vivacious, curious, generous and detail-oriented personality and ability to relate to employees and industry colleagues have contributed greatly to his success and leadership, according to friends and colleagues. “Mike has a wide-ranging and forward-thinking mind,” Christopher says. “He’s got a lot of perspective.”

“What really sets Mike apart from many, however, is his understanding and appreciation for people,” Boeke says. “For Mike, horticulture is about people, not plants. For Mike, successful business is about people, not money. Not forgetting where you came from and who influenced you as well as who continues to support you is the golden ticket for a successful business and a successful life. Mike inherently knows this and those relationships define who he is, who he wants to be, and who he will become. This is what sets him apart from many in the corporate world.”

Mike’s collaborative, “go-getter” attitude is what Rachel sees. “Mike speaks his mind,” Rachel says. “If the industry is in trouble, he says, ‘let’s fix it.’ He doesn’t sit on his hands and let somebody else do it.”

John considers his father to be one of his mentors. “It amazes me every day where his mind goes,” he says. “It’s always onto the next level of Plantpeddler. It’s not just status quo.”

“Mike is always concerned about the other person more than he is himself,” Warschauer says. “Once a partner, once a friend of Mike’s, whether you’re a supplier, family, the guy across the street — you’re in for life. He’s there for you and would give you the shirt off his back.”

Learning from other leaders

The biggest influence on Mike’s leadership has been his father. “He started many successful businesses with no fear of failure his entire life,” Mike says. “Watching his example of leadership and his entrepreneurial element is definitely one of the things that’s given me a lot of confidence. I often think about a lot of the things that he taught me.”

While his father was an important role model, Mike also took lessons from others in his life. “I’ve been blessed by a number of people that have been very influential and good role models,” he says. Among them, he lists his uncle on his dad’s side; his best friend Jeffrey Boeke’s father, a pharmacist who taught him about “the social side, conversation and the outdoors;” and the previous owners of Cresco Greenhouses, Arnie and Pauline Kubalsky, and their children, who helped them through the transition and wanted to “be a part of our success,” rather than simply walking away after the sale. Mike also mentions Norm White, a pillar of the industry. “Norm White has [always] been one of my role models,” he says. In general, he’s tried to emulate the success of his mentors over the years.

Guiding Plantpeddler through troubled waters

Plantpeddler has undergone many necessary transitions to stay relevant and make it through challenging economic times. At one point in the 1990s, Mike “saw the writing on the wall” about big box stores putting smaller stores out of business, and knew that Plantpeddler had to shift its focus in order to survive. Mike decided that, instead of using the money they set aside for a new greenhouse, they would hire a consulting firm to guide them into the future. “We invested about $350,000 during that two-year period in a project called PP2000 that led us to identify opportunities,” Mike says. “The problem was that nobody in the U.S. was shipping a good begonia liner that matched the European level of quality. We went to Europe. We learned how to do begonias the right way. The change that came out of the box stores getting into the florist business and driving small florists and grocery out of the industry allowed us to see an opportunity to get into a crop and product that’s one of our mainstays today.”

“Adapting the company and its people to growth and change is probably the most dynamic and interesting part,” Mike says. “Change is a powerful word. There are a lot of people that fear the word ‘change,’ and you’d better be careful how you approach change because change means insecurity to a lot of people. If you’re going to survive change you need to make sure you have buy-in from your key players. That’s the one part where we’ve exceled is making sure everybody knew the reason for the change, hopefully what point that was going to take us to, and what the goal was after the change had happened.”

The Great Recession of the late 2000s was as much of a challenge for Plantpeddler as it was for other businesses. “We got bounced around between banks,” Mike says. But he wasn’t ready to give up quite yet. “Probably most people would’ve said at this point ‘Forget it, throw it in — it’s not worth it,’” he says. “But with a never-fail attitude, there’s always a way to get the job done.” Plantpeddler, under Mike’s leadership, pushed through, and the company is stronger now than ever.

Rachel says that economic crises aren’t the only ones that have affected Plantpeddler over the years, and that Mike has handled all of them well. “He’s pretty levelheaded,” she says. “We’ve had so many ups and downs. We got hit by a tornado twice; we’ve had a fire and other emergencies. And [his response is] ‘It happened—now what are we going to do to fix it?’ That’s been Mike all of his life.”

“I’m at my best when we’re at our worst,” Mike says. “Everything is going along fine, the greenhouse looks really good, and all of a sudden you get spanked by a Midwestern storm. Glass is blown out all over, crops are all messed up. You’ve still got to take the business and put it back on its feet and get back in operation within hours.”

Boeke says that Mike’s resilience is due in part to his desire to keeping growing, professionally and personally, even when the situation is less than ideal. “A continual pursuit for growth of knowledge, growth of business, and obviously the growth of plants is what motivates him,” Boeke says. “There have been times when things didn’t work too well and other times when they did. Regardless of the outcomes, the race continues for Mike, exemplifying a ‘pick yourself up and get busy’ mentality.”

Building a legacy

Being able to pass on a strong, viable greenhouse business is of paramount importance to Mike, who is a dedicated family man. “I think the most important thing is to build a legacy that I can pass to our children and to the people that have helped build the company,” he says. “One of the unique features of our industry is you can have a family-owned business and have multiple generations.”

His children, Abby and John, grew up around the business. Upon graduating from ISU three years ago, John decided to learn from his parents before they decided to step down. “I realized that if I was going to go back to Plantpeddler, I was going to have to learn the ropes from some of the most knowledgeable and the hardest working people I knew — my parents,” he says. “There was no better place for knowledge than from the people who got Plantpeddler where it is today.”

It’s been a “privilege” to grow up in the greenhouse and watch it grow along with him, John says, and a great opportunity to work with and learn from his father. “I’ve worked with him every day and grown up with the guy,” John says. “I’ve been fortunate that I’ve seen all angles of him and not just as a son but as an employee. And it’s been a fun situation I find myself in. I wouldn’t change it at all.”

However, John says that he’s had to work just as hard as everyone else to prove himself within the company. “I can’t say there’s any favoritism toward me as their kid since I’ve been back full-time with the company,” he says. “It’s more of a formal deal on that side. But it’s nice because you can tell them your thoughts and know that they’re actually listening — not just because you’re their kid, but also because you’re an employee and work next to them. And you work just as hard as they have over the years. It’s an interesting relationship to juggle because usually family dinners turn into business discussions.”

And those family dinners turned business dinners helped shape the Gooder children’s perspectives on the business, Mike says. “It’s made the kids very aware of the challenges of the business,” he says. “Failures and successes, they’ve lived them, they’ve heard us talk through them.” But as a family, they were also a “work hard/play hard bunch,” he says. Whether it was a boating trip on the Mississippi River or a trip to see an Iowa State football game, horticulture would inevitably sneak in in the form of a visit to a garden or a greenhouse.

Mike hopes that his children see him as a leader, but also as a human. “We all have our weak spots and our flaws, not unlike anyone,” Mike says. “I hope they see through that side and see a person that’s passionate about business, passionate about the people that have helped build the company, and extremely passionate for our customers and their success.”

Mike has done his best to lead by example, and hopes that his children have seen that in order to be successful, you have to be passionate. “You have to believe in what you’re doing and put all of yourself into it,” Mike says.