Young Professionals Winter Insights of Three Highly Successful

by Nina A. Koziol

When Joey Rossa was nine years old he started a landscape business—mowing lawns. He hired his first employee when he was 14 and started doing design-build as a high school sophomore. By the time he was ready to graduate he had 18 employees. “I was a senior in high school and I’d be taking calls.” After graduating, he made a decision to go full time with landscaping and now, at age 26, he has 130 employees. “I have a passion for this industry.”

Rossa’s inspirational story, along with those of Austin Eischeid of Austin Eischeid Garden Design in Chicago and Adam King of King’s Landscape Design in Hinsdale, held a crowd in awe during a panel discussion moderated by Jillyan MacMorris of Night Light, Inc.

The February event was the brainchild of ILCA’s Young Professionals (YP) Committee. Neither rain, nor snow, nor ice — or all three that day — kept a crowd from gathering at Noon Whistle Brewing in Lombard for the winter event. Although some of the 115 who registered didn’t make it from the northern suburbs because they were snow plowing, the turnout was impressive. “It was a really good event,” said ILCA Executive Director Scott Grams. “Despite the bad weather, it was so great to see so many people.”

Austin Eischeid shared his path into the industry. You may know him from his work at Chicago’s Millennium Park and Midwest Groundcovers, but his projects range from residential to large scale public spaces across the country. “When I left school, I worked one season at a design-build firm. I wanted to include grasses in my designs and they said they didn’t want that so I quit the next day and bought a one-way ticket to London. I did a four-month trip to six countries.” He soaked up all the gardens he could and spent five years doing overseas sabbaticals.

During college, Adam King studied finance but also worked for Walt Disney as a Disney character. After graduating, he joined the family business as a delivery driver. “I started at the bottom of the company and that was the right decision. I learned about all the things I could fix and what wasn’t visible to management’s eyes.” He currently oversees