Not many lawn pros can gross better than $25,000 in their spare time. But that's what Dennis Sloan, owner of Sloan Landscape Maintenance, Ardmore, Oklahoma, did last year. This sixth grade science teacher did it with two Walker mowers, 20 residential accounts and virtually no help. Sounds like a lot of work for a part-time job? It is, notes Sloan, but not nearly as much as it used to be.

There's more to mowing lawns than meets the eye. If you don't think so, just sit down for a day and talk with the Corbetts, Craig and Natalie. Owners of Mowin' Ranger, Tremonton, Utah, this husband and wife team has been mowing lawns since the early '80s. Like so many lawn maintenance companies, where they are today and where they came from is as different as night and day. The Corbetts, however, are unique in terms of how they made the trip.

Not many people start careers the way New Jersey-native Sam Russo did in 1982 when a serious motorcycle accident left him temporarily disabled. Therapy consisted of walking behind a friend's lawn mower. Two and one-half million lawns later, he still hasn't looked back.

James Ritter, community manager for Leisure Village West in Manchester, New Jersey, was not an easy sell for ACE Power Equipment owner Sam Russo.

To be content in lawn maintenance today is to be putting your bid in for early retirement. Because as unique as the lawn maintenance business is, it has one thing in common with all other ventures. Change is inevitable, change is constant.

"I felt the ground begin to tremble and I realized too late that an ocean-going ship had caught me off guard. By the time I looked around it was right next to me. I could have reached out and touched it. It really gave me a fright. " So recounts Francie Keeler about one of her recent experiences working in the family business Dandy Lawn.