Jack Harvey started working in the landscaping industry 30 years ago. He’d always had a passion for the craft, along with a desire to build something special. But no matter how hard he worked or how many new accounts he picked up, things never quite came to fruition like he’d hoped … until recently.
“It’s been a floodgate since 2018,” says Jack, owner of Good Natured Lawn & Landscape in Newton Falls, Ohio. The company has developed an impeccable reputation among area HOAs (homeowners associations), resulting in several large accounts that have helped drive revenues to a record level in 2023.
It isn’t the sales volume that Jack is proud of, though. It’s the manner in which he and his son, Jon, along with their team of roughly 10 employees, are generating those sales. Even more important is why they are doing it.
Jack Harvey (seated on right) says his talented team has been a true blessing that has enabled his company to flourish like never before.
In Too Deep?
The first landscape company Jack Harvey owned 30 years ago didn’t turn out too well. “I really mismanaged the money side of things,” Jack relates. He ended up selling to a friend after 10 years.
In need of a job and coping with some additional life changes, Jack decided to move 700 miles south to Charleston, South Carolina. “I thought the grass would be greener down there, but it wasn’t,” Jack says. He worked for a couple different landscape companies before reaching his breaking point.
“I remember driving home from work one night,” Jack tells. “I was crossing the Cooper River Bridge when I thought to myself, ‘Jack, what have you done?’ I started bawling like a baby and decided to move back to Ohio.”
Jack went to work for another friend who also had a landscape company. He enjoyed it and appreciated the job, but didn’t feel a sense of reward. Jack’s wife, Kathy, suggested that he might want to start his own company again. Jack had $20,000 saved, but owed the IRS a lot more than that.
“Kathy and I were still dating at the time,” Jack says. “I told her what I owed. She just smiled and said, ‘We’ll figure it out.’ I couldn’t believe it. She’d been in banking for 20 years so I guess we were meant to be.”
Jack started Good Natured Lawn & Landscape in 2010. He used what little money he had to purchase what he calls “junk equipment” in order to get started.
Jack and Kathy Harvey, and their son, Jon.
“When I was 28 and had my first company, I had a fancy house on six acres with two new pickup trucks parked out front. I thought I was on top of the world,” Jack says. “The Good Book says, ‘Pride cometh before the fall.’ I’d been proud, and boy had I fallen. Now at 36, I had nothing but junk equipment.”
But Jack had more than that. He had Kathy, whose banking background and overall support would help keep him on track. “Without a good office manager, you might as well hang it up,” Jack says. “Kathy is amazing and we could never do this without her.”
Jack also had a reignited passion for landscaping. For the next eight years, things started to click. Jack was close to feeling on top of the world again. Then, in 2018, his world started to come crashing down again.
Jack’s father died in 2018. Then, in the early morning hours of January 8, 2019, two police officers were at Jack and Kathy’s door to tell them their daughter, Rachel, had taken her own life. Words can’t describe the devastation Jack and Kathy felt at that moment, which naturally persisted over the coming days, weeks and months. Then, about 10 months later, one of Jack’s brothers died.
“I could have just thrown up my hands and given up, because my employees and customers would have understood,” Jack says. “Then one night while lying in bed, Kathy said we should start going to church more. So we did. We never lost faith, and God kept us in the game. God told me we’d come too far and there was no turning back. He just had to give me a hard pruning. And what happens to a firebush when you prune it back? It flourishes. What we do today is to honor God and our daughter, Rachel.”
Rachel’s death was hard on her brother, too. Jon drifted away from not only the family business, but also the family as a whole. After nearly a year in dark despair, Jon got the sudden urge to reach out to his father.
“We were hanging Christmas lights at our church when I got a really long text,” Jack recalls. “It was from Jon. He was ready to come home and get himself back on track.”
Becoming the Benchmark
Good Natured Lawn & Landscape has been on a roll ever since. One HOA account led to another. “The latest contract we landed is a really big one,” Jack says. “I’d received an email from a board member saying that another landscape company told him we were the benchmark in HOA maintenance. Boy, that felt good.”
Good Natured is now servicing around 30 HOAs, along with a few industrial-type commercial properties and a handful of residentials. But the bread and butter is HOA maintenance, and breaking into that market is what prompted the company to begin using Walker Mowers. Jack and Jon had grown frustrated with what they called the “mulching mess” and “discharge disaster.” The bigger problem was that the mid-mount and stand-on mowers they were using were having a tough time bagging decently.
“Back during my younger and more prideful years, I used to think the Walker was a silly machine that was too expensive,” Jack says. “But now we needed to up our quality, so we decided to give it a try. We were immediately impressed by not only the cut quality, but also the efficiency. The mower has a light footprint and isn’t bulky and cumbersome.”
“You can be on a postage stamp size lawn and still change the mowing pattern,” Jon adds. “We never mow the same direction two weeks in a row. By using our 48-inch Model T23’s, we typically switch our pattern four different ways. That makes a big impact on quality.”
A Free Pass on Really Tall Grass
Good Natured Lawn & Landscape spends four days a week servicing their HOA accounts. Some are so large that crews have to triple team them. It’s not uncommon to see four Walkers mowing at once while four other employees run around with string trimmers. Needless to say, there is a tremendous amount of grass those four Walker Mowers pick up— especially in the spring.
“We’ve started referring to our Walkers as our get-out-of-jail-free cards,” Jack says. “Whenever we’re getting a stretch of rain, Jon and I look at each other and ask, ‘Who isn’t getting mowed tomorrow?’ That’s just the way it is. Of course, my phone is going off nonstop with nervous HOA board members. I got a call from one president who was especially nervous earlier this spring. I told him, ‘The Good Book says to be anxious for nothing. Don’t worry, we’ll get it and it will look great.’”
“That’s one of the crazy things about using Walkers,” Jon adds. “When the grass is high and dry, it looks like it was never missed when we’ve finished mowing. And the really crazy thing is that it takes less time than if we were side-discharging and had to double-cut. We don’t have to chase after messes, and that saves a ton of time.”
Good Natured crews are also saving tons of time on hauling their clippings away from a property. They purchased a used truck vac on an auction site for a fraction of the cost of a new one. They’d originally purchased it to suck up piles of leaves in the fall, but got the idea to try it on grass clippings earlier this season. It has worked splendidly, significantly slicing the time mower operators spend dumping, since they don’t have to travel as long a distance to dump into a parked trailer. Additionally, the crew doesn’t need a crew member up in that trailer to pitch grass clippings forward anymore.
Finding ways to be more efficient has been essential as Good Natured Lawn & Landscape has grown. Working smarter not only creates the space to provide better quality, but also makes employees feel more motivated.
“We couldn’t do what we do without our amazing team,” Jack says. “People sometimes ask me, ‘Jack, where did you find such great employees?’ The thing is, I don’t feel like I found anybody. I feel like they were sent to me as part of this second chance God decided to give me.”
Jack Harvey has never taken that opportunity lightly. This time around as a landscape company owner, he’s not doing it for fancy trucks or prestige. He’s doing it for the glory of God, the memory of his daughter, Rachel, his family whom he loves, and his customers and employees he feels privileged to have the opportunity to work with. Just look at that firebush flourish.
In loving memory of Rachel Harvey
Jack Harvey says his business motivation these days is his appreciation for the opportunity God has given him, along with the memory of his beloved daughter, Rachel, who took her own life in 2019.
When you or a loved one are experiencing mental health issues, it’s important to know that support is all around you. Jack and his wife, Kathy, found tremendous support through their church family. Help is also available through the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by simply calling or texting 988 to talk to a professional counselor.
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