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Virginia Turfgrass Council – Member Spotlight: Jack Findling, Distribution Sales for Newsom Seed
Virginia Turfgrass Journal – Julie Holt, Content Director, TheTurfZone.com
Jack Findling has a dynamic, 40+ year history in the industry and currently serves on the development committee at the VTC. We sat down with Jack to get his perspective on everything from labor challenges to consumer education and more. VTC would like to thank Jack for his dedication to our organization and his many years of advocating for well-trained and knowledgeable work force.
What was your career path that brought you to your current position?
When I was young, I enjoyed outside, I enjoyed the yard work. I got into application support with local companies, and residential companies were just starting up back in the 80s. I went in with ChemLawn when it was family-owned and I worked there for about13 years. Then they were making a business change and it was time to move on. I got into distribution sales in the mid-90s and enjoyed that ever since and felt that was more my calling. I’ve worked for several companies doing that. All in the same mid-Atlantic area. I always just enjoyed that distribution sales line.
In being in that same segment of the industry for that many years, what are the biggest changes you’ve seen?
I’ve watched people grow their business, I’ve watched chemistry change over the years. Certainly the EPA has a lot to do with that, either omitting something from the market or enhancing something new in the market that arguably could be a safer application not only to the environment, but for personnel as well. That might be the biggest change is the evolution of the chemistries, how they’re stored, how they’re applied, how you go about the certification knowledge to have a license, to be a company. It’s an evolution going on even now, but I think that the biggest is watching the chemistry change over the years, for the better.
Does that present a challenge for you in educating professionals in the field and companies on how they’re using those products?
I could easily write a yearly program and factor in some products and teach those products and be sure they’re done with proper equipment calibration, the product rates per 1000 square feet per acre are done by label. You teach the EPA label as the word. So most distribution sales are involved with the teaching of new products as they come online.
From lawn care to golf to sports turf, a lot of turfgrass managers who are public-facing are having to do some education on that end. Is that something you’re able to help prepare your clients for?
The answer is more full than that, it’s beyond chemistry. It’s seed and fertilizer and soil maintenance. You intertwine all of that over the course of the year. In doing so, you may minimize application products or the components of products, where they’re more safe, and minimized, and you’re doing more seeding or soil maintenance work and you’re keeping the lawn thin in that regard, and it does help you minimize chemical application. I’ve been involved with teaching that, and it is a part of the market now. Certainly there are geographies that don’t allow chemistry in home lawn use, so you’re almost forced to develop a plan of action on behalf of these homeowners. And you have to do that along with the government agencies that restricted you as well as the lawn care business owner that’s doing the home lawn use, so it’s all intertwined together, and everybody works together. It quite amazing how that does evolve. And so far, so good. There’s a challenge, but yet it’s seamless. It’s quite interesting.
I know we hear the word “misinformation” a lot, and that certainly applies in the more technical elements of what you’re doing. Can you get ahead of that or are you constantly correcting?
Well, you can get ahead of it by building the relationship with the lawn care operator and then you usually don’t go back to that. That’s a process that happens once or twice and you mi...
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Virginia Turfgrass Journal – Julie Holt, Content Director, TheTurfZone.com
Jack Findling has a dynamic, 40+ year history in the industry and currently serves on the development committee at the VTC. We sat down with Jack to get his perspective on everything from labor challenges to consumer education and more. VTC would like to thank Jack for his dedication to our organization and his many years of advocating for well-trained and knowledgeable work force.
What was your career path that brought you to your current position?
When I was young, I enjoyed outside, I enjoyed the yard work. I got into application support with local companies, and residential companies were just starting up back in the 80s. I went in with ChemLawn when it was family-owned and I worked there for about13 years. Then they were making a business change and it was time to move on. I got into distribution sales in the mid-90s and enjoyed that ever since and felt that was more my calling. I’ve worked for several companies doing that. All in the same mid-Atlantic area. I always just enjoyed that distribution sales line.
In being in that same segment of the industry for that many years, what are the biggest changes you’ve seen?
I’ve watched people grow their business, I’ve watched chemistry change over the years. Certainly the EPA has a lot to do with that, either omitting something from the market or enhancing something new in the market that arguably could be a safer application not only to the environment, but for personnel as well. That might be the biggest change is the evolution of the chemistries, how they’re stored, how they’re applied, how you go about the certification knowledge to have a license, to be a company. It’s an evolution going on even now, but I think that the biggest is watching the chemistry change over the years, for the better.
Does that present a challenge for you in educating professionals in the field and companies on how they’re using those products?
I could easily write a yearly program and factor in some products and teach those products and be sure they’re done with proper equipment calibration, the product rates per 1000 square feet per acre are done by label. You teach the EPA label as the word. So most distribution sales are involved with the teaching of new products as they come online.
From lawn care to golf to sports turf, a lot of turfgrass managers who are public-facing are having to do some education on that end. Is that something you’re able to help prepare your clients for?
The answer is more full than that, it’s beyond chemistry. It’s seed and fertilizer and soil maintenance. You intertwine all of that over the course of the year. In doing so, you may minimize application products or the components of products, where they’re more safe, and minimized, and you’re doing more seeding or soil maintenance work and you’re keeping the lawn thin in that regard, and it does help you minimize chemical application. I’ve been involved with teaching that, and it is a part of the market now. Certainly there are geographies that don’t allow chemistry in home lawn use, so you’re almost forced to develop a plan of action on behalf of these homeowners. And you have to do that along with the government agencies that restricted you as well as the lawn care business owner that’s doing the home lawn use, so it’s all intertwined together, and everybody works together. It quite amazing how that does evolve. And so far, so good. There’s a challenge, but yet it’s seamless. It’s quite interesting.
I know we hear the word “misinformation” a lot, and that certainly applies in the more technical elements of what you’re doing. Can you get ahead of that or are you constantly correcting?
Well, you can get ahead of it by building the relationship with the lawn care operator and then you usually don’t go back to that. That’s a process that happens once or twice and you mi...