Comments on Gooding's Nursery, by Paula Bigelow

Gooding's Nursery and Landscaping (GN&L) was one of four stops on the H&CS 401.02 2000 study tour. Richard F. Gooding (President and General Manager) gave us an overview of the organization and provided us with information about the history, mission statement and philosophy of the company. GN&L began as Gooding's Evergreen Nursery in 1950. It was started by Richard's dad (R.J.) as a part time retail nursery and Richard's mom assisted with retail sales. The idea was to gain additional income in order to send R.J.'s children to college, which he accomplished. Richard graduated from OSU in 1975 with a major in Landscape Horticulture and a minor in agricultural business. He went to work at the nursery full time and added a landscape contracting division at that time. Later, Richard's brother and each of their spouses joined the company, which truly made it a family operated company.

A landscape site for Gooding's Landscape Services

Richard Gooding

Today, GN&L is a full service retail garden center/nursery which has grown from 3 to 89 acres. GN&L employs 15 people year-round and 23 people as seasonal help. They service about a 50-mile radius covering Cady, Carrollton, Dover and New Philadelphia, Ohio. Just over 76% of sales come from the landscape division; retail sales bring in about 16%; and, the nursery/lawn care brings in the final 8% of the sales. The company now earns most of its revenue from the landscaping division.

The majority of the landscaping revenues, 80%, are derived from residential installations while the remaining 20% of the jobs are commercial installations. The landscape division is broken down into 5 categories as follows: landscape installation/construction, 53% of sales within the division; landscape maintenance, 29.9%; landscape health care/arborist services, 8.64%; mowing services 5.67%; and, professional services, including design at 2.79%.

This family business exists because it believes in providing quality services at reasonable prices, treating their customers and employees in a fair and honest manner all while improving the environment by using sound environmental practices. Their goals are to be profitable, advance current technology, and train their staff in order to be a leader in the industry. Their goal to improve technology is needed since their designing was still done by hand. The recent installation of a computer system, which can handle a CAD program, should greatly reduce time spent creating each design and time spent making alterations to each design. GN&L treats their employees as part of their family, which increases the employee retention rate. In the future they may be able to increase employee comfort by possibly increasing the workspace and looking toward more aesthetically pleasing work areas. This has the potential to increase work output while remaining a relatively inexpensive undertaking. I believe that one of the key qualities of a successful business is a good business manager. No matter how superior the products and services a business provides, it needs an excellent financial management team
GN&L has been able to provide quality to their customers while paying close attention to their financial statements, which allow for future expansion and growth. Over all, touring the facility was a positive learning experience. It was evident that Richard enjoyed his work as well as the chance to give fellow OSU students an opportunity to see some of the inner workings of the business side of our profession. He gave us advice and information which few people share. By doing this he gave us an education in less than one day, which would typically take a great deal of trust and time to achieve. This is just one indication of the quality and type of person Richard strives to be. Sharing the knowledge is truly a sign of greatness.