Weathermatic partners praise first-ever SmartCon

Weathermatic’s first-ever SmartCon was a rousing success, bringing together Weathermatic partners from across the country. (Photo: Weathermatic)

Weathermatic recently hosted its first-ever partner summit, SmartCon, in Arlington, Texas. The event brought together Weathermatic partners from across the United States, allowing ideas to flow.

“SmartCon was a huge success and achieved the objective of bringing together the most progressive landscape companies in America in one place to sharpen their skills and build relationships to form a community that continually supports its member’s success in labor and water management,” said Brodie Bruner, Weathermatic executive vice president.

The three-day event brought over 150 attendees to Globe Life Field — the home of the Texas Rangers. Weathermatic offered both business and technical tracks to attendees in addition to some joint sessions.

According to Bruner, one of the more popular sessions was the program’s ask the experts session.

SmartCon attendees were treated to business and technical tracks. (Photo: Weathermatic)

Speakers included Bob Grover, president of NALP & Pacific Landscape Management; Scott Needham, CEO of ProQual Landscaping; Tommy Silvers, director of commercial operations at Southern Botanical and John Vanderburg, VP of sales & marketing at Silversands Services.

Outside of the sessions, Weathermatic treated attendees to a dinner honoring platinum premier partners, the opportunity to play on the field at Globe Life Field and an after-party complete with a live country band and a mechanical bull.

LM also spoke with a pair of SmartCon attendees — Amanda McManus, client relationship manager, Irrigation by Design and Giuseppe Baldi, irrigation and chemical division manager, Lawns of Dallas — about their experience at the inaugural conference.

Marketplace of ideas

Both Irrigation by Design and Lawns of Dallas are relatively new to the Weathermatic program — both have been partners for about a year. Attending SmartCon allowed them to meet with other partners from around the country and pick up ideas from contractors more experienced with the SmartLink platform.

“The primary reason we wanted to attend was to meet with our peers and find out what they are doing, where they’ve seen success, what they’ve learned and what we can learn from them,” said McManus.

Diving in headfirst

McManus says Irrigation by Design is “working on a plan to make Weathermatic controllers sort of mandatory with our agreements going forward.” She adds that the controllers will save the company time.

Similarly, Baldi and Lawns of Dallas use the SmartLink system to help advance their business.

“One of the big things for us was getting to the point where we could focus more on getting to the point where we can make improvements on our irrigation systems at our properties, rather than just fixing what is broken.”

All in all, both Baldi and McManus left Arlington excited about their partnership with Weathermatic and what they learned at SmartCon.

“I go to a lot of conferences, and this one was definitely different. It was a lot more enjoyable,” said Baldi.

SmartCon 2023

Weathermatic plans to build off the success of the first event, according to Bruner. When asked where the next conference would be located, he didn’t give away the location but did tell LM that it would be at another major sports venue.