What she found inside was a mom-and-pop operation bursting at the seams -- and suffering under the weight of its own popularity. Growing from a local landscaper to a full-service design and building firm with top-notch clients across the state, Kent Horticultural Services desperately needed to reconcile its operational technology with its new workload. And Roy was just the ambitious New Yorker to meet the challenge head-on.
So Roy rolled up her sleeves and got to work. First order of business: order the shop's very first computers and teach its founders how to transform technology into great customer service. Next, Roy worked to implement a rudimentary operations system upon which the company could continue to build indefinitely. Today, Kent's plucky mom-and-pop shop is one of the largest full-service landscaping companies in the state. And it's preparing to unveil a Web-based tool that will allow clients to participate in the design and building process from across the city -- or the country.
Meanwhile, Roy has forged ahead with another challenging business proposition: a small company founded and operated by her and her husband, Serafino Bueti, called Treemobile LLC. Roy and Bueti's love of the land and business innovation helped them create a customer-oriented tree-moving service that fills the gap between landscape architects and nursery services. By relating directly to the customer without truckloads of subcontractors, Treemobile is carving a niche among Connecticut homeowners who want to help design their own landscaping. The killer app behind Treemobile is a unique variation on a tree spade that removes and replants very large trees. By mounting those machines on Volvo trucks, Roy and her husband have built a tool known throughout Connecticut as a "treemobile," rather than a tree spade -- suddenly, they are enjoying the same branding success as Band-Aid, Xerox, and Kleenex.
A loyal Fast Company reader since issue 3, Roy says that she adapts the magazine's principles to fit her off-center job in an off-center industry. Now landscaping is front and center as we congratulate Roy on her winning submission and thank her for contributing to the Fast Company community.
Read Roy's winning submission to the Lap(top) of Luxury contest here.
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