5 Questions: Brian Gray

Brian Gray (Photo: LM Staff)

Brian Gray

Operations Manager, Precision Landscape Management, Greenville, S.C.

1. Tell me about Precision Landscape Management. How did you end up working there?

We are a full-service landscape company. We do design/build, lawn maintenance and lawn and plant care across the board. We’ve been in business for 12 years and have 40 employees. I was working for a tree care company in town and I knew Nate Moses, the owner. I’m a (ISA) Certified Arborist. I talked with Nate about bringing plant care into the company. We’ve been rocking and rolling since. I love it. I started out as a guy cutting grass at age 16. I’ve held different positions in the green industry since I was 18. I’m 34 now. The green industry has always been my passion.

2. What does your family like to do for fun?

My wife is Jordan. We have two little girls, 9 and 6. We’re pretty simple — a family outing for us is going to the neighborhood pool or the park. We have awesome parks here. Being outside, riding bikes, that kind of stuff. If we can get the girls tired enough to go to bed on time, then we accomplished our mission.

3. What is your most memorable day at work?

When I worked for a tree company, I had a guy say to me, if you’re going to operate a bucket truck then you need to know what it feels like to be all the way up. We had a center-mount bucket that had an elevator on it. He put the outriggers out. I strapped in, put my hard hat on. He was operating the controls because I didn’t know the controls yet. He sent me straight up in the air 75 feet up. It’s weird to look down 75 feet and see that tiny truck and the tiny people walking around, laughing at how nervous you are. It was a rush, for sure.

4. What will be your biggest challenge in the 2022 season?

From a company perspective, as we continue to scale … we’re a small business, we’re looking to scale our lawn care program and our lawn and plant care division as a whole. We take our culture very seriously. As we bring new managers into the company, we are trying to make sure we maintain that culture. We’re looking to bring in a new service manager to scale that division from where it is to five times what it is. How can we do what we’re doing on a bigger scale and still deliver the same experience? Finding that right person is going to be the biggest challenge this year.

5. What is your favorite time-saving tool?

From my perspective technology is one of the biggest things that is helping our company. We use Service Autopilot. One of my favorite things about Service Autopilot is the automation. To deliver a really high-level experience to clients, if we have a customer on the schedule, we have it set up so the client is going to get a text and an email two days before saying which technician will be on their property, and when they will be there. That’s 200 phone calls or 200 emails that one person doesn’t have to send out. Any way we can use technology to automate what we’re doing and deliver a high level of client experience, I’m a huge fan of that.