By Bob Tubby CLP
LO past president

At LO’s Annual General meeting in January, past president Bob Tubby reflected on the theme he chose for his presidency and how it can span out to benefit the entire green industry.

The theme of my presidency has been Prosperity Partners, and how members of Landscape Ontario partner with one another to raise the prosperity level for all. Let’s take a moment to flesh out the word prosperity, and how it relates to your average landscape professional.
 

Social prosperity

At all the meetings I attended over the past two years, I was witness to the fact that LO members like to get together and get to know one another. The main challenge of the meeting is getting the audience to stop socializing and begin the program. We like and care for one another, evidenced by the fact that many of these professional friendships extend well beyond LO circles. We have all heard it said, and it is so true, it’s the meeting after the meeting that is the most important.
 

Professional prosperity

Our response was launching the Prosperity Partners program. It is our hope that this program will accelerate our collective journey towards business excellence. Prosperity means:

1. We will be better leaders in our own businesses and be better able to inspire the people around us. With a better organized and motivated work force, will delegate more and be able to restore our own work/life balance to something more resembling normal.
2. We will increase our prices and be in a better position to earn more money resulting in a better paycheque for us, and increased profits for our businesses. Our companies will be financially strong and better able to withstand tougher times when they occur. With higher charge-out rates we will also be able to increase the wages paid to employees, thereby being better competitors in the scarce labour market and holding our employees longer.
3. We will have a green public persona where the public recognizes LO members as trustworthy and the best choice for service. To that end we have an Environmental Stewardship committee and a Branding committee working to help us achieve these goals.

 

Personal prosperity

We all know that life is more than working, eating and sleeping. Through LO we have the opportunity to make a difference in our industry, our community and to leave a lasting legacy. What we do for a living is good for the health and wellbeing of all that we touch, and for our planet as well. We have the opportunity to show our gratitude through our contribution to the environment and society as a whole.

To state the goal simply — my hope is that each of use will find prosperity in a way that is meaningful to us individually and that you will take the time and make the effort to help a fellow LO member find his or her own version of prosperity as well.