When I was 12, a friend of my parents told me that there was an older gentleman just up the road who was looking for someone to mow his grass for him. As it was the beginning of summer, and there was not much else to do in such a small town, I decided it would be a good chance to make some money. The man’s name was Frank Humphrey, and he let me use his Snapper High Vac self-propelled walk behind mower. He paid me $10/week. And that was the start of my career! Frank and his wife were retired, so he had plenty of time to feed his METICULOUSNESS about every detail of his show stopping lawn! Needless to say under his watchful eye it did not take me long to learn how to mow straight lines, trim without scalping, and go the extra mile to make sure he was happy.

It doesn’t take long for word to get out in a small town, and within the next couple of months I had 3-4 weekly customers. At that point I had saved up enough money to purchase a Craftsman riding mower. My dad helped me build a trailer for it, and I used the 4-wheeler from our small family farm to pull the mower into town and service my accounts. Note the sandbag on the front of the 4-wheler. That was to keep the front tires on the ground when pulling the trailer.

As I moved onto high school and got my driver’s license, I was able to expand my efforts into Great Falls. I did work for people around Belt who also had property or knew someone in Great Falls that needed work done. I upgraded from the Craftsman mower to an Encore Z32 zero turn mower with a bagger. In shop class I customized a utility trailer purchased from a neighbor of ours. I hired friends during the summer months to help out with the ever growing list of lawns to mow. During the winter, I plowed snow from small driveways and sidewalks. I actually was hired by the school in Belt to clear all the sidewalks around the buildings before class.

From the fall of 1998 to the spring of 2001 I attended Montana State University in Bozeman, and received a Bachelor’s Degree in Horticulture – Landscape Design. Looking back, it might have been more helpful to have studied business or accounting. I already had the landscaping part down. While I attended college I went home on weekends to service my landscaping customers. I took my 4-wheeler and snowplow to Bozeman and rounded up some driveways and sidewalks to plow around my neighborhood.

Between 1998 and 2001 I would go to Great Falls and always notice the competition there. I was very envious of a couple of the companies. I remember every Friday morning, there would be a line of 4-8 Mr. Green Lawn Care trucks at the city carwash on 10th Ave and 38th St. Their trucks were always spotless. They seemed to have the majority of “big” work in town. Also, during that time, I started to notice 4 Seasons Lot Service. They had a different approach, offering not only landscape services, but also parking lot sweeping, pothole repair, striping, and pressure washing. I knew a combination of the two businesses was where I wanted to take my company. During that time, it was very easy to stay motivated and to keep hustling because those guys had all the jobs I wanted, and I knew that I could do better work than they could.

After college, I moved back and continued growing business. I purchased a small shop on the corner of 32nd Street and 2nd Ave. N. The commercial contracts I had been servicing during the summer through college now wanted me to provide snow removal. I was always focused on acquiring new accounts (especially accounts that were serviced by the two companies I wanted to outperform) as well as the physical work of providing the services and working on the trucks. It was very important to me that everything was presented in a neat and clean manner. Although I was focused and very good at those things, there were other things that I was clueless about; legit payroll, taxes, insurance, AR/AP, budgeting, etc. This is why I say I should have been a business or accounting major in college. I have the landscaping part down, it’s the business and leadership side that has been a struggle. Around 2008 I was able to convince Willow to quit her full-time office manager’s job and start working with me.  That’s when things really began to pick up. She was able to focus on all the bookkeeping aspects of the company while I was able to stay focused on selling and fulfilling contracts. We made a great team.

Today Doctor Lawn is the largest lawn care company in Great Falls, servicing more than 500 local businesses, restaurants, condominium complexes, and residences year-round. And we are proud to announce that we have now begun serving Kalispell and the Flathead Valley area.

Although the company has grown substantially over the years, we still give personalized attention to each and every customer and customize services to their specific liking. We still focus on each job as if it was our only one, and we give it the same meticulous care we’d give our own property.