EDUCATION
Getting back to your roots
E
William Innes-Taylor
GO Landscape building real careers
veryone has a story of how they came to join the landscape industry, be that as a school leaver, training at college or university, as an apprentice, a career changer or maybe a Youth Training Scheme. Inspiring people to join the industry so often starts with telling them the story of how you came in and your journey (so far), going on to describe what you love about it and what the future looks like. We hear from William Innes-Taylor, Contracts Manager with Oak View Landscapes about his journey and his long-standing history with the Association and as a GoLandscape Ambassador.
Why landscaping?
I got into landscaping at an early age as I enjoyed working with plants and improving gardens around my hometown in Lincolnshire. From there my interest grew, I looked for more challenging projects and finally decided after college to attend Writtle College to study horticulture. After looking at different avenues of horticulture while at Writtle, I discovered a passion for ‘proper’ landscaping. I then met with Oak View Landscapes and Paul Downer.
How did you hear about landscaping as a career?
I heard about commercial, high-end landscaping through BALI and my former
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tutor Greg Allen. We were taught at university about what the Association stands for and the companies that work with it. So, a few others and I really wanted to focus on working for a company with BALI accreditation.
How did you start?
I started mowing gardens, from there I moved into landscaping gardens in my spare time. After studying horticulture then business studies at college and horticultural science at university, I realised I wanted to work in commercial landscaping. Very fortunately I knew what I wanted to do in life, and I enjoy my job and working in a highly professional company with likeminded, quality-driven colleagues.
What has your work history been so far?
So far, I worked for a maintenance company in my early to mid-teen years, then I set up and did my own landscaping work through college up to university. During university I won the BALI Chalk Fund award in my final year, then I became employed with Oak View Landscapes as their Assistant Manager, progressing to Contracts Manager. After a year or so I briefly moved home and started at Tim Wells Nurseries working as their Project Manager on high level schemes throughout the South West.
