Mini Interviews

Mini Interviews

Heidi Creekmur, Multi-line Manufacturers Representative, H Design Source La Jolla, California

What is the best part of your job?

The diversity of everyday activities I’m doing and people I’m interacting with means never a dull moment. My work also has a service and a creative aspect, as well as a nice balance between working solo at home and meeting with people.

What’s your favorite place you’ve ever visited?

It’s a tossup between Byron Bay, Australia, and the Nicoya Peninsula in Costa Rica.

What would you blow your money on?

Traveling the world.

What has the quarantine taught you?

People are overrated. Kidding … It was really nice to have a minute and slow down and reflect on how fast and stressful life has become.

What’s the best advice you have received for your career?

I was a business major in college and actually wrote a thesis paper on career planning. It was largely academic, so I don’t really recall what it said, but as I developed my career over time, the best advice I’ve learned is find something you really enjoy doing every day, and which includes skills you’re naturally inclined to, and success will follow.

Jake Leman, Vice President, Singing Hills Landscape, INC. Aurora, Colorado

What is the best part of your job?

Opening doors of opportunity for our company family. I’m really excited about the nine Mexican families we have recently sponsored for U.S. residency and 10 more currently in process.

What’s the one thing that would make the industry better?

An improvement in the national attitude toward the trades as a fulfilling and rewarding profession.

What has the quarantine taught you?

Without accurate information and solid data, it is near impossible to make wise decisions.

What are you most proud of?

Professionally: Our average employee has been with us over 10 years, and we have 12 second-generation employees and four third-generation. Personally: My wife Tifani and our four young children.

What is your favorite phrase, slogan?

“If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. If you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime.”

What advice would you give to someone entering the green industry?

Invest in others, network whenever possible and be quick with a genuine smile.

Korey Lofy, Rocky Mountain Territory Manager, ArborJet Granby, Colorado

What’s the key to great design?

A great design has plant diversification and carefully selected plant varieties that can thrive in the soil, environment and growing conditions.

What’s the best part of your job?

I love helping people on their journey to becoming industry professionals as we try to save trees! Seeing the development of young men and women over the years has been amazing, and the most rewarding part of my job.

What’s the one thing that would make the industry better?

More education for all and collaboration between landscape architects, arborists and maintenance people.

Where’s your happy place?

Skiing powder in the trees on trails without official names.

What advice would you give to someone entering the green industry?

Always continue to educate yourself and admit when you don’t know something. Friends, family, work ethic and integrity are some of the most important things we have in this world. Be humble, be kind and be eager to help others.

Aaron Michael, Founder & CEO, Earth Love Gardens Boulder, Colorado

What inspired you to get into the industry?

Growing my own vegetable garden in 2018. I enjoyed working outside and, through an inherent drive to serve my community, wanted to help others grow and maintain their own gardens in the most ecologicallyfriendly way as possible. From our partnership with the Audubon Rockies in 2019, I further learned the importance of creating (as well as conserving) habitat for birds, pollinators and other wildlife.

What’s the best part of your job?

Connecting people with the Earth and the abundant benefits this connection provides.

What’s one thing that would make the industry better?

Providing our services as ecologicallyfriendly as possible. There’s no reason a Karl Foerster grass, native to Asia, needs to be utilized when a native Indian grass (or other local native equivalent) can be planted and further provide habitat for butterflies and birds.

What’s the key to great design?

Meeting the balance between the wants and needs of a client, what is ecologicallybeneficial for the environment the landscape is in and, of course, what is appropriate to what the site’s conditions allow for.