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Keith O’Neil, general manager for Vila & Son Landscaping Corporation’s West Palm Beach, Florida, branch, does not wait until students are attending two-year or four-year schools to recruit them. No, he makes it a point to visit area high schools with horticulture programs to meet the teachers and offer his support to help promote the landscaping profession.

“I believe the earlier you get young people thinking about the possibilities in a landscaping career, the better chance you have of actually piquing their interest in the profession,” relates O’Neil. “The building trades start telling their story in elementary school. There is no reason why we cannot start reaching out to middle school and high school students.”

Career Development

O’Neil takes a cue from his own career development. It was in high school, he says, when he first became interested in horticulture and started thinking seriously about making it a career. “I tell my own children that they should look at several different career opportunities before making a career decision,” he notes. “One of our responsibilities as professionals in this industry is to make sure students have an understanding of what this industry is about and that it is given a chance to be one of their options.”

He continues, “The idea we want to convey to high school students and young people in general is that there is more to being a landscape contractor than digging a hole and planting a plant. They may get that impression by seeing a gardener or two driving around in a beat-up pickup truck. We want to explain to them that being a landscape contractor is being a businessperson who can operate in any of several different fields. They can work in design, in installation, in maintenance, in irrigation, in the commercial market, in the residential market, in exterior, in interior … the list goes on.”

To get his message to students, O’Neil suggests striking up a relationship with a teacher and offer to supply a class with plant material, soil, and other teaching aids. He says contractors can also work to find businesses to donate materials to classrooms and volunteer their own time to talk about landscaping in class. “I have actually brought landscape designs into a classroom and explained how the design process works,” says O’Neil. “I will tell students to observe a new house being built and to take notice of what it looks like before and after the landscaping has been installed. The grass and landscaping, I tell them, is the cover to the canvass on a painting.”

Career Days

Even if the high school does not have a horticulture program, landscape contractors can still take their message to students via career days, O’Neil adds. “If it has a program that is more agriculture than landscaping oriented, take your message anyway. Students will appreciate another perspective and, again, it opens their eyes to more career possibilities.”

O’Neil also thinks it is important to give students a firsthand look at what a landscape contractor’s office looks like and to give them an opportunity to work there for the summer. “Because of their age, they may not be able to work in the field, but even giving students a job in the office gives them a taste of what it would be like to have a career in this profession.”

As he points out, introducing high school students to the industry will not have an immediate impact on a company’s recruiting effort. It will, however, prime the pump and work to encourage those students who have never thought about a career in landscaping to give it a first, and possibly second, thought. If they do and a student develops an authentic interest in a landscape career, the industry, individual contractors, and the student have all won.

3/04

By Rod Dickens, ALCA Contributing Writer