Family’s business a growing concern
It’s a time-consuming yet satisfying tradition for most homeowners – and a point of envy for many neighbors.
Maintaining a healthy lawn requires near-constant upkeep and year-round dedication.
And the payoff – a personal oasis of fertile green carpets of grass, fungus-free plant life and well-planned landscaping – requires hours of watering, design decisions and digging in the dirt.
Thankfully, there are those dedicated to making the efforts easier – and lighter on the wallet.
For business owners David and Linda Gibson, knowing what their customers want out of their yards is a personal concern – because they want the same vigorous, eye-catching landscape surrounding their own home. Every yard their Post Falls-based Ultra-Lawn company helps maintain, they say, acts not only as a business calling card, but also as a sign of their commitment to the client.
“Our business is unique because it’s personal,” said Linda Gibson, CEO of Ultra-Lawn. “We’re North Idaho locals who live, work and play here, just like you. We know lawns and we know what our customers want: lush, green, weed-free lawns that look like they belong in North Idaho.”
Since the company’s inception in 1997, it has amassed a residential and commercial customer base throughout Kootenai County, boasting yards brimming with healthy plant life and well-maintained turf. Among the full-service offerings are fertilization, weed control, mowing, exterior pest control, and landscape design and installation.
While Ultra-Lawn has grown into an 11-member team of dedicated lawn care professionals and seasonal employees, it started out on a much smaller scale.
About 12 years ago, David Gibson, a longtime lawn treatment applicator and maintenance employee of national franchises before striking out on his own, started in the industry while a student at the University of Montana. After transferring to North Idaho with a nationwide company, he decided he wanted to go out on his own.
In the living room of their former Rathdrum home, he formed Ultra-Lawn. As a licensed specialist in yard treatments, he bought a used truck and set out mowing and fertilizing yards in the area for the first year of operations.
“That was scary going out on our own,” David Gibson recalled from the company’s headquarters in the large, modified shop across from their country home. “I was 27 at the time and I’d always had goals of owning a business before I turned 30.”
Linda Gibson, meanwhile, who had a government and business background working for the state of Illinois, was finding success in her own line of work as a local mortgage banker.
However, as Ultra-Lawn began to add more customers and employees during the last decade, the duo, who’ve been married since 1991, decided it was time to unite their individual strengths into the family business. They even worked together on the business logo.
“Linda took a whole lot of pressure off me” regarding the financial side of the company, David Gibson said.
Through the years, as Ultra-Lawn grew in size and scale (and the Gibson family expanded to include two boys), the owners added a variety of other lawn care services to the mix. In addition to employees certified to provide chemical treatments through continuing education courses from the Department of Agriculture, they added a sprinkler installation division in 2006.
And with business coaching from the Idaho Small Business Development Center, operated out of the NIC Workforce Training Center in Post Falls, the owners were able to fine tune their long-term plans and change the direction of the company for the better, Linda Gibson said.
With the economic downturn restricting consumer spending, the Gibsons said they have witnessed a decline in sprinkler installations. Despite that, though, the company has posted consistent sales increases each year.