A lot has changed in the months since last fall’s State of Lighting report. As I write this, 61% of U.S. adults have received at least one vaccine dose for COVID-19, according to the CDC. I’m in awe of the scientists and researchers who worked tirelessly to develop a novel vaccine in less time than “coronavirus” had been a household name.

But in some ways, things aren’t all that different from last November. Countries like India are still in the throes of this global pandemic. Here at home, we’re grappling with imagining a post-pandemic world. It’s a reminder the fight isn’t over.

It’s also why I’m so proud to be part of this ferocious industry. Through it all, cultivators persevered, navigating lockdowns, case spikes and ever-changing working conditions to continually deliver the fresh food, beautiful plants and a sense of normalcy the world needed most.

At the same time, scrutiny on carbon emissions grows louder and our commitment to supporting you has never felt more critical. We are answering the call with powerfully efficient innovations, backed by data, research and support. And it’s not just about LED. Although this year’s report shows adoption continues to soar.

We believe that to truly serve cultivators, we must evolve for all the ways you grow. At Gavita, we continue to optimize HPS to propel yields with less environmental impact. As a company, we’re driven by our responsibility to help cultivators feed the world’s needs today, while prioritizing sustainability for a brighter tomorrow.

That means designing fixtures that reduce electric draw from day 1 and pay for themselves in energy savings well within their warranty period. It also means forging partnerships with energy rebate experts like Seinergy to help growers offset the cost of LED adoption. Regulations, grant applications and utility approvals are time-consuming and confusing. Our exclusive partnership provides analysts to manage the process for you. These are only the first in our many efforts to be the best partners to you.

As I look back on the past few months, I am inspired by the tenacity our industry has shown. I’m also not surprised. But I am excited to see where — together — we go next.

Chris Hagedorn, General Manager, Hawthorne Gardening Company

Learn more about Hawthorne Gardening Company and

how you can get a free lighting layout at hawthorne-gardening.com.

Jake Pierson is a second-generation nurseryman. His father, Dale Pierson founded Pierson Nurseries in Biddeford, Maine, with his wife, Mike, in 1973. Jake technically joined his parents’ business in 2004, after a few years of college and a ton of student debt forced him to re-evaluate his situation.

Of course, like with most family businesses, he’d been working in or around the nursery since he was a kid. “I practiced my multiplication on a potting trailer by counting how many rows of plants there were and how many plants were in the row to figure out how many we’d potted,” Jake says.

However, Jake’s story is not one of those in which the second-generation son was a lock to take over the family business ever since he could walk the rows of containers. 

“When he was younger he worked a bit there and didn’t enjoy it at all,” Dale says.

For a while, Jake didn’t think he was going into the family business. A voracious reader who typically has two or three books going at any given time, he studied political science in college before leaving without a degree. 

“It was an eye-opening experience,” he says. “I had always been at the top of my class in school. And when I went to college, it didn’t click with me. It just wasn’t what I expected. I really was disappointed that I was paying a lot of money to be taught the same way I was taught in elementary school, middle school and high school.”

Leaving college the way he did brought Jake to a few realizations. Just because a path worked for other people, even people you know and trust, doesn’t mean that you have to follow that same path. Different people experience things differently, and that’s OK. The lessons applies to leadership, as well. Your vision isn’t always correct and your way isn’t always the right way.

“To be cognizant of that, I pay attention to know that not everybody sees everything the way you see it,” Jake says. “And that’s really going to help us as a company. It’s helped me as an owner, as a boss and as a partner with my dad, understanding that conversation and discussion has to happen for anything to move forward in a positive way.”

Now 38, Jake is a co-owner of Pierson Nurseries, Inc., a wholesale grower and rewholesaler of trees, shrubs, and perennials that primarily serves clients in the furthest reaches of Maine and New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and beyond.

Industry advocate

After leaving college, he came home with a different perspective. He had always gotten along with the nursery industry folks he’d met, and he liked their outlook a lot more than some of the individuals he met in the collegiate political arena.

“We’re farmers in the big picture, and farmers are a different breed,” he says. “We have to be a little independent and we have to roll with the punches a little bit more than other industries.”

He’s used his background in political science to become an advocate for his people, from navigating tricky legislative issues to understanding how the system works and how to get elected representatives to care about the same things growers care about. 

He’s stepped up to take leadership positions in state, regional and national associations. As vice president and then president of the Maine Landscape and Nursery Association (MELNA), Jake launched and grew his state’s Plant Something! Program into one of the most successful in the U.S., according to Donald F. Sproul, executive director of MELNA.

Plant Something! is the brainchild of Cheryl Goar of the Arizona Nursery Association. It’s a national marketing campaign aimed at convincing consumers to buy plants. It’s a simple program that is adaptable to anyone in the green industry. Other attempted national marketing programs have failed because they tried to be too specialized, overshooting their consumers’ horticulture education level.

“They don’t know, they don’t care whether it’s a hydrangea, magnolia, juniper or potentilla,” Jake says. “They just see it as plants.”

It irks him to see so many companies in other industries touting their environmental initiatives. To Jake, that seems like a missed opportunity for horticulture and the industry needs to do better.

“We’re the original green industry. When you think about it, we’re growing oxygen-making machines,” he says. 

He’s also been a driving force behind the Maine Flower Show, which became an instant hit with the gardening public, homeowners, and professionals when it was launched in 2017. It’s wasn’t his first rodeo in show management, as a past president of New England Grows, the regional trade show and education event that folded in 2018 after 25 years. 

With MELNA, he’s also handled annual charity work landscaping projects. One recent project was the landscape of the Travis Mills Foundation, a non-profit organization founded by retired U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Travis Mills to support recalibration and wellness goals of the families of veterans injured in active duty. Jake worked on the implementation of a world-class landscape for the foundation, which serves as a vacation destination for these families. 

“Through Jake’s leadership, and the efforts of numerous volunteers, the project was a resounding success,” Sproul says.

Getting started 

Peter van Berkum remembers Jake as a teenager working at New England Grows as a show official, zipping around the show floor on an electric golf cart and helping anyone with anything. Peter became a mentor to Jake, even though their personalities are quite different. 

“I always joke that I’m a loud-mouth Mainer and he’s a quiet Dutchman, and we have very different styles, but we always have really interesting and educational conversations,” Jake says. “Every time we talk, both of us come away with something different that we will want to try in our businesses.”

Van Berkum agrees with Jake’s assessment and enjoys their frank and honest chats. 

“We’re totally different people, which makes it fun,” van Berkum says. “You know just where you stand with Jake, he’s not going to sugarcoat it. I always appreciate that.”

Unlike other industries, the nursery business is not ruthless. Even your competitors are often willing to share their thoughts, successes and difficulties. 

“You’d never get a Microsoft and an Apple executive in the same room talking about the trouble they’re having with their operating systems,” Jake says. “But I could call my biggest competitor in New England about a certain plant that we’re having trouble growing, and they’ll tell me that they do too. And they’ll give me tips about how to do a better job on it. That gives me a lot of inspiration because there are other people struggling with the same issues you’re having.”

Because of the willingness to share, Jake says the advice he would give to anyone starting out in the industry is to join your local associations and organizations. When his father was just getting started, he joined NENA, the now-defunct New England Nursery Association. Dale attended a meeting and ended up sitting next to Neil Van Sloun, the founder of Sylvan Nursery in Massachusetts. Both men politely introduced themselves and began chatting. The elder Pierson left with a notebook full of ideas to jumpstart his fledgling business.

“My dad always jokes that ‘that one day has paid for my entire life of any trade association membership fee that I will ever pay. And probably any fee that you’ll pay, Jake,’ he says. “And it was all because of one meeting where he sat down next to somebody who ran a business like we wanted to be like.”

As Jake became more involved with the nursery, he’d answer the phone and Dale’s business contacts would think Jake was his father. They’d often comment to Dale upon meeting Jake for the first time that his son was so like him that they couldn’t tell the two men apart. Dale would thank them with a smile, wait a beat and drop the hammer: telling them he and his wife adopted Jake when he was 3 days old. He loves watching the surprised reactions. 

For his part, Dale was aware of the pressures that come with being the scion of the business owner. Dale never had expectations of Jake or his sister joining the family business. As a compulsive planner, Dale started to devise exit strategies when he was 50, picking the best of the few options available to him at the time. That all changed when Jake decided he wanted to be involved.

“He started at the bottom, and did everything,” Dale says. “My nursery manager gave him the title ‘manager in training.’ I used to ask him once in a while, ‘you still in it for the long haul?’ He is. I’ve stepped back away and let him run more of it by far than I do.”

The partnership has been working well. Dale still provides his son with the occasional bit of tempering advice. 

“In general, we do a good job together,” he says. “I can count on one hand the number of times we’ve been mad at each other for more than an hour. That’s not bad for the last 15-or-so years.

Finding the next level

One tip Jake says has helped him along the way is to be prepared for failure. No matter what you do and in spite of your careful actions, plants will die. And it’s not necessarily because anyone did anything wrong. Growers need to make peace with that fact.

“We’re dealing with living things,” he says. “We’re not dealing with a 2x4, a computer chip or a piece of plywood. We’re dealing with living organisms that no matter your best intention, may not survive. But every time it’s an opportunity to learn and you’ll get better at it.”

The toughest challenge Pierson Nursery faces now is labor. The nursery pays competitively and has ramped up its use of the H-2A program. Still, there are times in which workers are left short-staffed. Each morning, Jake leads a “big picture” meeting that discusses the happenings at the nursery that day. Jake says if his team has a sense of why some employees are being shifted to another part of the nursery, they won’t be resentful about being left to handle their task with less help than usual.

Help was on the way, however, from Jamaica. Most of Pierson’s full-time staff works from February to December with a few high-school kids for summer help. This year, the Pierson’s brought in six H-2A workers who’ll stay from March to November. The nursery industry’s labor force is Latino-heavy, but New England apple growers have traditionally used Jamaican labor. Finding an employee who speaks Spanish is difficult in Maine, and with Jamaica, the language barrier is a non-issue. Jake spoke with several area growers, who recommended the program, and he’s glad he took the leap. The extra hands help when “the wheels come off” in spring. 

“I’m really, really proud of how well we’ve integrated the folks from Jamaica into our team and our family,” Jake says. 

Jake also worked with FlowVision to improve efficiency through their Lean manufacturing principles. Jake says Gary Cortes’ firm was an incredible asset that helped the nursery streamline its potting system. He’s got plans for future improvements to their pulling, loading and shipping departments, as well.

He’s also changed the irrigation system so that all of Pierson’s field-grown material is under drip irrigation. This keeps labor costs down, through not moving pipe around, and is better for the soil health, reducing the chance that they will compact the soil by excessive overhead irrigation. 

“We’re being much more targeted with what we’re watering,” Jake says. “We can just water the rows of plants, not the weeds.”

Jake has pushed for growth and the nursery has substantially grown since he joined. The staffing level has doubled, sales have significantly increased and production has had to grow to keep pace. Being in Maine, the nursery is physically the farthest point from West Coast suppliers. Jake wanted to increase the amount of their own grown material to give them more control over their inventory. Last year, the nursery bought its third parcel of land, about 120 acres which will be in production within the next two years. Before that acquisition, Pierson had 50 acres of field, 10 acres of B&B holding area, 6 acres for wetland production and 12 acres of containers.

What the future holds

The business is set up for success, which is one of the reasons Jake decided to stay. Located in Southern Maine and witnessing the push of people moving northeast from Massachusetts, the nursery is well-positioned for growth. Pierson’s Nursery sells to landscape contractors, who have stayed busy in the Northeast for a long time. There have been downturns, but they’ve come back strong after each setback. Pierson’s product can’t be outsourced; it’s heavy, in-demand material that is not readily available just anywhere. The region’s public is demanding more and more. And it’s capital-intensive to set up shop, which means it’s less likely that a large competitor will move in.

Peter van Berkum says three qualities have helped Jake succeed: curiosity, drive, and the willingness to make changes.

“Being 2nd generation isn’t nearly as easy as people think, from what I’ve seen,” says Peter van Berkum. “It takes a real special kind of mind and determination like Jake has to take something your father’s done and make it go, because your old man’s been doing it for 30 years. He really took that ball and ran with it.” 

He also thinks Jake’s wife, Allie, has been a great asset to the company due to her cool and collected nature. 

Jake and Allie have two children, Kay and Theodore, who are eight and seven-years-old. Jake loves being a dad, and says that just like the nursery industry, parenthood provides something new every day. His family loves boating and spends a lot of time on the water. Jake also enjoys golf, even though he isn’t very good at it, and he’s hoping to rekindle his love of skiing as his kids get older.

“I don’t have any doubt that that nursery is going to do fine over the next 25 years,” van Berkum says. “He’s one of the few people in Maine that really does a lot of growing and rewholesaling and has a good formula going on. He has a great breadth of knowledge about herbaceous and woody material and in the general running of the nursery. He’s got a great vision of what he needs to do and how to get there.”

Dale and Jake have been executing their succession plan for the nursery, which becomes more weighted on Jake’s side each year. Currently, Dale is working two days a week (plus-or-minus a day here and there) for the next 2-5 years. After that, he’ll be officially done. And he believes he’s leaving the nursery in the best of hands.

“He does an excellent job and he’s taken our business to the next level, which I wouldn’t have done,” Dale says. “As I’ve aged, I’ve become a little more risk-averse. (The nursery is) certainly larger than it’s ever been. All excellent moves.”

Matthew Piscitelli’s initial flash of entrepreneurship happened on the school bus on his way to grade school. 

“The first thing I ever did in business was buy one-cent bubblegum and sell it for a nickel,” says Matt, who grew up in Brockton, Mass., about 30 minutes south of Boston. “That was the first sense I ever had that I wanted to be my own boss, and I’ve never really had a boss since then.”

Although Matt’s business aspirations were unmistakable, he didn’t feel a strong pull toward any certain industry as he progressed through school. The thought of working in the horticulture industry never crossed his mind—but now, as co-owner of Olson’s Greenhouse, with an award-winning flower documentary to his name, Matt can’t imagine working in another field. 

“Even in college, I had no idea what I wanted to do,” says Matt, who earned a Bachelor of Science in marketing from Bryant University in Rhode Island, where he was highly involved in student senate and fraternity leadership. He cemented his business acumen at Northeastern University, where he taught introduction to business classes as a teaching assistant while pursuing his MBA in finance. “I wanted to own my own company. I just didn’t know what it was going to be yet.”

By following his entrepreneurial spirit from one successful business to another, Matt forged a career path that finally led him to horticulture—where he’s making a big impact through flowers and film festivals, alike. 

From startup to success

After completing grad school in 2001, Matt found his first business opportunity right inside his home. 

“I had a friend who was storing some home respiratory equipment in my house, and I had all kinds of questions,” he says. “Once he explained what it was, and what the reimbursement rates were from the federal government and private insurers, a little bell rang over my head. That’s how Orion Home Health was born.”

Matt partnered with his friend to found the company after writing a business plan based on his financial projections. They launched early the following year and began selling home respiratory equipment. The operation taught him a lot about running a business—and even more about working effectively with a business partner.

“My strengths are finance and accounting,” Matt says. “I had no idea about healthcare, so I needed a business partner who understood the industry, the product, and the trends. Our strengths didn’t overlap completely, but they touched like cogs in an engine, and that was important.” 

The pair worked well together with this complementary approach—growing the business past the million-dollar milestone within three years. Their quick success caught the attention of Rotech Healthcare, a public company that acquired their startup in 2005.

Following the successful sale of his first business, Matt took an extended four-month vacation with his newlywed wife, Stephanie. They traveled to the Greek island of Mykonos, then spent several weeks in Naples, Florida, along with several trips to Cape Cod, Vermont, and other spots around New England. 

Then, the entrepreneurial itch returned. “I need to get back into business,” Matt told his wife. “I have to either start something or buy something.”

Joining Olson’s family

Matt began writing business plans to develop his next startup, leaning toward an opportunity in computer hardware sales. But it was a routine trip to the local garden center that planted the seed for his next business venture. 

Matt and Stephanie had been shopping together at Olson’s Garden Center in Wareham for years, gradually developing a friendship with the owner, Clive Olson, Jr. Around this time, as Matt was exploring his next career move, Clive mentioned that his father wanted to sell the family’s wholesale flower business, Olson’s Greenhouses Inc. Following the sudden losses of two top employees, along with a devastating fire that destroyed about 40,000 square feet of greenhouses—all within the span of just a few months—the business patriarch was, at age 75, ready to retire.

“Thinking I knew everything, I said, ‘Let me help you put together a prospectus and market [the business for sale],’” Matt says. “Once I did the prospectus, I understood why Clive Olson, Sr., wanted to get out of the business. But it had a premium product with a great name attached to it. There were real opportunities to capitalize on it.”

Even with Matt’s help, the Olson family couldn’t find any interested buyers for the greenhouse, which Clive Sr.’s father established in 1916. Yet Matt saw potential in the antiquated facilities, so he took matters into his own hands and asked Clive Jr., to buy the business with him. “I said, ‘Listen, there’s value here, but I can’t do it alone. I don’t know the product. I don’t know the industry. I need to work with somebody,’” Matt remembers.

After seeing Matt grow his first business so successfully, Clive Jr. couldn’t refuse his friend’s offer. “I would typically never have a business partner, but I saw him work with his previous partner to build and sell their company within a few years, and they got along great,” Clive says. “[Because of] our friendship, I knew we were going to do great, too.”

Matt and Clive purchased Olson’s Greenhouses in April 2006—taking the (then) 90-year-old business into the third-generation of family leadership while introducing the company’s first non-Olson owner in history. By combining Clive’s industry knowledge with Matt’s business acumen, the two young co-owners brought the perfect balance to revitalize the operation.

“The quality of Olson’s product was second-to-none, but we saw inefficiencies in management, production, and shipping. It was just a matter of streamlining [the process],” Matt says. “They had to get out of their own way, because they were mired in nearly 100 years of doing things the same way. So, we had to come in and shake things up. The business wasn’t going to be around if drastic changes weren’t made.”

Revitalizing a century-old operation 

Matt and Clive shared a vision of growing Olson’s Greenhouse to carry on the family’s legacy under a new era of efficiency.

“We had to make sacrifices, for sure,” Matt says. “For the first two years, we [basically] took no salary—$50 a week; it might have been $100 in year two, but that was our investment. When two owners don’t take a salary, that’s a big chunk of money going straight back into the business. That [reinvestment] repaired the greenhouses, rebuilt the loading dock, bought new trucks and shipping carts, and fixed a lot of broken things that made production more efficient.”

The new leadership duo began implementing automation to modernize the aging business, which turned 100 in 2016. Automated pot filling machines and conveyor belts sped up production, while boom irrigation replaced hand-watering to reduce labor needs and improve consistency. These changes allowed the operation to scale smoothly as they expanded the business—adding more growing capacity while diversifying their retail avenues.

In 2009, they decided to open a garden center in one of the greenhouses, mainly selling product grown on-site. Naming the store was one of the easiest business decisions Matt ever made. “Clive Olson Sr.’s favorite term is ‘lovely day.’ That’s what he’ll say when you leave the room,” he says. “So, we decided to take the first greenhouse, which is right along a busy street, and turn it into Lovely Day Garden Center. It’s a little jewel.”

The on-site store serves customers with “middle-of-the-road pricing,” Matt says, whereas Olson’s Garden Center (which is fully owned by Clive Jr.) offers a high-end retail experience, complete with statues, fountains, bushes, trees, and shrubs. In 2010, Matt and Clive partnered up again to open a coffee shop called Cup 2 Café adjacent to Olson’s Garden Center.

Then, in 2012, another retail opportunity walked right into the greenhouse. “We had one of our largest customers come in and say, ‘I’m done. You guys want to buy the business?’” Matt says. “As a business guy, my ears perked up, and we worked out a deal.” They purchased Klein Greenhouse, about 20 miles away, to complete their retail portfolio with a “high volume, low margin angle.” 

“We saw the value in having another retail location that we could expand on,” Matt says. “It creates a larger customer base for Olson’s Greenhouses when we control the product from the seed to the consumer, and there’s a [better] margin versus just selling it [wholesale].”

Documenting daffodils

As a diehard Bostonian, Matt always looks forward to Patriot’s Day, on the third Monday of April every year, when the city hosts the world’s oldest annual marathon. “I go every year,” he says. “It’s my favorite day in Boston.”

The annual marathon festivities have become personal traditions for Matt, who has lived within an hour of Boston his whole life. Whether it’s raining, snowing, or beautiful that day, he’s there. In fact, he was standing at the finish line in 2013 when the bombs exploded — killing three people and injuring hundreds more.

“I was 70 feet away when the bombing happened. Another three minutes, and I would have been dead,” he says. “It was a scary day, and it had a big impact [on a lot of people.]”

The tragedy unified the city around a slogan of emerging “Boston Strong.” As a tribute to this movement, a local horticulturalist named Diane Valle began organizing community support to place tens of thousands of potted daffodils along the route, as a way of welcoming runners back to symbolize a new beginning. Matt loved the idea—given his personal ties to the event and his professional connection to the flower industry. He joined the board of directors for Marathon Daffodils, the 501(c)3 non-profit, as Olson’s Greenhouses supplied the flower bulbs to support Diane’s vision.

When Matt walked past the daffodil-lined marathon route on his way into Boston’s Capital Grille in 2015, he realized just how much time and care had gone into those flowers. “I said, ‘If anybody knew what it took to get one of these daffodils here, they’d be impressed.” That’s when the idea struck him: to produce a documentary that followed a single flower’s journey to become a symbol of hope at the Boston Marathon.

Matt excused himself from the restaurant and stepped outside to call his brother, Michael Piscitelli, who has produced shows like “Wicked Tuna” for National Geographic and “American Chopper” on Discovery. After Matt explained his idea for “Path of the Daff,” Michael jumped on board as director, cinematographer, editor, and executive producer. Clive Jr. joined up, as well, sharing an executive producer title with Matt as they self-funded the project together. 

The three of them spent the next two years filming every moment of the flower’s lifecycle, from bulb to the Boston Marathon, telling the story through multiple perspectives along the way. Matt traveled to Holland twice to document the daffodils’ origins with the help of his suppliers, Pete Rotteveel and Ben Van Egmond of Rotteveel Bulb Co.

After a year of post-production work, the “Path of the Daff” entered the film festival circuit in 2019. Eleven festivals screened the film, which racked up a handful of awards including best documentary, best cinematography, and best director. To top it off, the movie recently nabbed three Emmy nominations for best lead editor, best audio mix, and best score.

In Clive’s opinion, the award-winning film officially marks Matt’s evolution from “a business guy” to a horticultural leader who’s bringing a fresh perspective to flowers. Considering that Matt didn’t understand that a “six-inch” geranium referred to the pot size—not the plant height—when he first joined Olson’s, Clive is impressed with the impact Matt’s making, not just in Boston, but across the profession. “To have this movie is pretty cool for the whole industry,” Clive says. 

Building a business legacy 

Piscitelli stays actively involved in all his business ventures—spending time at Klein and Olson’s Greenhouses every day, and frequently visiting the coffee shop in Wareham. 

“Being at the morning and afternoon meeting daily shows that I’m an involved owner, and that’s exceptionally important,” says Matt, who lives just 10 minutes down the road from the greenhouse. 

Although Matt strives to remain visible as a leader, he also believes in building strong layers of management that run smoothly without constant oversight. “I have great managers, so that creates an opportunity for me to have time off,” says Matt, noting that several of his managers have decades of experience at the company. “When I have time off, it’s straight to the family. That’s the only place I’d rather be besides work.” 

Matt and Stephanie have been married 15 years. Their sons—Grayson, 14, a freshman; and Madden, 11, a fifth-grader—both play sports, which means, “a lot of games, a lot of practices, a lot of fun,” Matt says. The family also spends a lot of time together at their vacation home. 

The horticulture industry gives Matt a chance to stay involved in his kids’ schools—whether he’s showing off bugs to teach students about Olson’s pest management program or handing out seed starter kits through the Massachusetts Flower Growers’ Association, where he serves as vice president. Matt also works with local agricultural schools to recruit greenhouse employees, and continues to mentor business students at Bryant. 

“I wouldn’t be as good at business without being in horticulture,” Matt says. “I’ve learned a lot here, and I have no intention of leaving the green industry.”

Matt has plenty of leadership advice to share with the next generation, based on the tremendous growth and turnaround he has orchestrated at Olson’s in just 15 years. In that time, the operation has expanded from 17 acres of outdoor production to now 65, with six acres under cover. 

As gratifying as the business growth has been, Matt says the greatest honor is earning the respect of Olson’s team—especially his predecessor, Clive Sr., who has become a father figure to him since losing his own dad many years ago. 

“The thing I’m most proud about is that Olson’s is still up and running. The greenhouse needed a lot to just survive, to be where it is today,” Matt says. “Mr. Olson has watched the business that he stepped back from flourish, and if I can have even a one-person legacy like that, that would make me happy.” 

They say all great leaders have a morning routine they stick to each day, and Walters Gardens Ryan “RJ” Hop is no exception to that rule.

The chief operating officer and newly minted member of our 2021 HILA Class rises at 4:30 a.m. every morning and gets in a morning workout, getting his mind and body aligned and off to a good start before making the trek into the greenhouse for the day. 

“I’ll get a solid ride on my bike trainer in if it’s dark or too cold that morning, maybe do some weightlifting and then I’ll typically have a protein shake and get into office and I’ll already be wide awake,” Hop shares. “But really, it’s the people that make me want to wake up and come into work every day. I couldn’t ask for better people.”

How it all started

Hop’s grandfather Dennis Walters founded the Zeeland, Michigan-based wholesale greenhouse and nursery operation when then farm owner Dena Knoll hired the soon-to-be family patriarch as a farm hand. When Knoll’s daughter Harriet and Walters eventually wed and decided to go into business together, the Walters Gardens of today was officially born.

“They took what was a smaller nursery business at the time and turned it into a big, successful business, so as a kid I got started in farming at the age of 10 just mowing lawns and doing weeding around the farm, and riding around with grandpa on his tractor and listening to him tell his stories about all the plants he loved,” Hop recalls. 

High school and college (Hop double- majored in finance and marketing at nearby Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids from 2000-2004) meant coming back to the farm on breaks and over the summer to work. 

The summer of his college graduation offered a bit of serendipity, as the operation’s one-man IT department at the time was making a career move. Having a good grasp of technology and with an intimate knowledge of basically every aspect of Walters’ operation from having spent so much time around the property growing up, Hop turned out to be the perfect fit as the new IT man. 

Early returns

Fresh off a college campus and with a fresh set of eyes, Hop began implementing changes within the operation’s IT department that were meant, in his words, to “help us get to where we’re working smarter, not harder.” 

Hop realized early on the power of data aggregation and information sharing, and he did a bit of what people in professional football call self-scouting: the operation was creating and collecting and analyzing all of this great production and point-of-sale data, but it was all “siloed” as Hop recalls. 

“We decided that we had to upgrade and out of that our Enterprise Reporting Program (ERP) called Live Product was born,” he says. 

Hop says the proprietary software does everything from collecting data throughout all facets of the operation as well as managing everything from “inventory to order entry, to running supply and demand analysis and triggering alerts for our growers based on real-time conditions.”

“We have these handheld order scanners hooked up to it and our employees can walk with it and it will actually tell them the most efficient order when they’re picking and filling orders for shipping,” he adds. 

Hop believes the program has been instrumental in allowing Walters to scale up to its 500,000+ square feet of growing space under cover and over 1,500 acres of field production. 

“Walters today really has two sides of the business – the greenhouse side and the bare root side, which is right around 45% of the business today with greenhouse making up the other 55%,” he says.

Covid coaster

Hop says the last 18 months at Walters amidst the pandemic has been “a roller coaster ride.” Before COVID broke out in the states, Hop and his team were expecting a great season. Then, throughout that March and April the company saw massive customer order cancellations, so everyone’s antennas were up. 

“Then all of a sudden everything turned around, and our customers were begging to get their hands on anything we could grow for them,” he says. This season turned out really well, Hop says, as literally everything they planted this season has been sold already.

“I think what COVID has taught us so far is just how to be nimble and how to kind of be okay and cool-headed even when you’re not really sure what’s going on, and how to press forward in the middle of that,” Hop says. “That first March and April we kind of held back on what we planted, and then once everything kind of switched and we realized everyone wanted plants we just said, ‘Let’s go for it!’” 

As COO, Hop is a member of Charlie Hall’s EAGL program, which he said was a great help during the pandemic. “Everyone knows about Charlie, but I have to say that whole program was a great resource for us, it really was.” 

Past winner speaks

Centerton Nursery’s Bridgeton, New Jersey Donald “Bob” Blew – a member of the 2020 HILA class – lavishes the most dude-appropriate form of praise possible when asked about his friend and colleague, Ryan Hop. He is the type of guy anyone would love to share a brew or two with. 

“Most of our conversations about our companies and the industry are spent over a beer or two, after which we both would think that – with enough time – we could solve all of the industry’s problems,” the Centerton president says. “Even when we’re having fun and blowing off some steam, he’s still thinking about things that could better himself or his company.” 

Another facet of Hop that stands out for Blew is his generosity with his time and innate horticultural knowledge. 

“Despite being at the forefront of a large and growing greenhouse operation, Ryan is always willing to take time out of his day to help me, whenever I need it,” he explains. “I often find myself seeking out an independent ear that I know I can trust to talk through issues or challenges, and he is always there with an objective opinion and a helping hand.” 

Inefficiencies, according to Blew, are another non-starter for his horticulture industry buddy. 

“For the last few years that I’ve known him, he has always wanted to find ways to improve his company,” he says. “I’d say that he hates seeing inefficiencies. He can’t stand seeing something being done in a way that he knows could be done better.”

But perhaps the grandest compliment Blew can dole out is to recognize Hop’s near-wizardly mastery of his domain and his role at Walters, and within the greenhouse industry itself. 

“Ryan has the ability to see things from both the 90,000-foot view (as Charlie Hall would put it) down to the smallest detail – meaning, he can still see the big picture, but he also realizes how big picture decisions effect individual employees, departments, or even SKUs,” he says. “This industry has a lot of broad-stroke, big-picture types of managers. And we have a lot of micro-managers that focus too closely on one thing or one sector of their business. Ryan has the entire process in mind, and he can make decisions that move his company forward in a prudent and profitable direction.”

Tech focused

Having spent the bulk of his career working in both technology (Hop was Walters IT director prior to being named COO) and horticulture, Hop wishes there was a bit more give and take between the two worlds. It is improving of late, but still, horticulture in general has a way to go in that regard. 

“For me, the hardest thing for this industry to change is just watching all of these great pieces of technology that are being developed for, and how instrumental they are in, this industry, and that general reluctance for a lot of growers to adopt,” he says. “Plant people don’t really seem to be technology people – and I’m okay with that – but there needs to be a little more crossover in my opinion.” 

Hop has been influential in how Walters Gardens approaches the horticulture technology sector. The current ethos is to “start small, you’ve got to walk before you can run,” according to Hop. This fall Walters will be running with a new TTA Flex Sorter, and the young COO is eager to get the machine into the greenhouse and put it to work making his employees’ lives easier. 

“Our big thing there is, technology doesn’t solve all of our problems by itself,” he says. “It’s the people working with these machines and technologies that are really helping us solve problems. Technology is just an aid.”

The Flex Sorter will enable a slightly smaller staffed second shift once they iron out all the kinks and get it up and running. Hop says the plan is to “elongate the working day but at the same time not overwhelm anyone with more hours or work.” 

“I see technology as the helper but again, it’s not necessarily the one thing that solves the problem, in fact we find that very rarely is it just a single technology solving a problem by itself,” he adds. “It still takes the right person in that operator’s chair, solving the real issues.”

Community oriented

As if the pandemic didn’t cause enough misfortune of its own accord, it also has put a pause on one of Hops’ favorite annual traditions at Walters: the spring charity sale. 

“In a typical year we would open up to the public with our excess inventory right around Memorial Day weekend or shortly after, and then donate all of the proceeds from the sale that year to a local charity,” Hop says. “The community has really embraced it for years, and we got it to the point where we were giving really large amounts to charity.” 

Unfortunately, a multitude of reasons and circumstances related to COVID (it honestly was just unsafe for people to come to it, Hop allows) have halted the sale for the last two years. Hop and his management team remain committed to the local community, however. 

“Just this morning we were sitting around the conference room table and talking about it, we like to give back at least 10% each year, and give it in support of some of these really great organizations locally that are doing a lot of good in the community,” Hop says. 

Ryan the guy

Away from the greenhouse, Hop enjoys spending time with his growing family – he and his wife have two young children – as well as spending some time kicking around Western Michigan’s many world-class golf courses. 

“I’d say my favorite thing to do outside of work and outside of being at home with my family is to play golf,” Hop says. “I’ve been in the same Thursday night golf league for the past 20 years now, with the same group of guys, a lot of them I’ve been playing with since I was in high school.” 

With restrictions eased and travel mostly given the OK for this summer, and Walters’ busy spring and early summer season having come to an end in late June, Hop and his family will be heading out for new adventures this summer up in the Mitten State. 

“We are just starting out life as campers,” Hop chuckles. “We just bought a nice camper and all the gear, so the plan is to hit the road and experience a bunch of Michigan’s state parks and stay at some nice campgrounds.” 

Future thoughts

For all his redeeming qualities – and there seem to be quite a few, probably too many, to list here –Hop remains grounded in his work and his daily mission to produce quality plants in the most efficient manner possible.

“While so many nurseries and greenhouses are focused on growth, especially in the current market, Ryan sits back and asks the really important questions, like does it even make sense to grow now, or in this certain way?” Blew shares. “If we do this, can we maintain profitability? Can we staff it in the way we need to? Those sorts of questions. Without a grounded connection to reality, it can be easy for companies to lack this focus.”

Moving forward, it’s sunny skies and bright days ahead for this mid-career horticulture professional and his growing family – both at home and at Walters. 

“I really do think the future is bright,” Hop practically beams. “The pandemic oddly brought in this new gardener set, and these new gardeners are excited about their homes and plants, and I don’t see that excitement waning as we open back up. 

“In a way, we were struggling with this Millennial generation [pre-COVID], and then somehow, someway, COVID kept everyone home and it opened up horticulture to a whole new type of client and group of people. It’s exciting, that’s for sure.”