Guest Speaker:

In the spring of 1971, Ed began his landscaping career in Connecticut after borrowing $700 from his mother to help finance his new venture. By advertising in the local newspaper and going door to door, he quickly landed 17 residential accounts, which he serviced out of the trunk of his car. Having left a successful career in the restaurant industry to pursue his dream of working outside and creating beauty in the landscape,

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Ed was committed to growing his business and soon set his sights on competing in the larger commercial and multi-family markets. By 1976 he had obtained a Commercial Supervisory License for the application of pesticides, which gave him a clear edge over his competition. He also enrolled in night school to hone his horticulture and business skills and recruited experts in the field to help him move his business forward.

In 1980, Ed sold his residential route and entered the commercial, industrial, and corporate markets in Connecticut and New York—whereupon he quickly reached $1 million in sales. Realizing the enormous potential of his business, he turned his attention to landing General Electric World Headquarters, one of the most prestigious accounts in the country. For the next five years Ed continued to strategically grow his company and to court GE management to consider a bid from him. In 1985, GE—with a new president at the helm—did just that and soon awarded the account to Ed, his first multimillion-dollar contract. No account was unobtainable now. Over the next ten years, Ed secured contracts with Xerox, ABB, Olin Chemical, GE Capital, Travelers Insurance, Bristol Meyers, GTE, General-Re, Phillips Medical, and many others. His annual sales soared past $7 million as he became the largest and most respected landscape maintenance contractor in Connecticut, with a diversified client portfolio of Fortune 100 and 500 companies and municipal and multi-family properties. Always strategic in his pursuits, he acquired a number of other landscape and arbor-care companies, strengthening his business through the synergy and enhanced competencies they provided. In 1998, Lawn & Landscape magazine named his company, Laflamme Services, Inc., one of the top 25 landscaping companies in the country.

Following the sale of his company to LandCare USA in the spring of 1999, Ed co-founded GreenZebras, an Internet venture providing a full product line to the green industry. He and his partners sold the company to Green2Go in 2001.

Ed currently serves as president of The Harvest Group, coaching landscapers to attain sustainable profits and to create equity in their business. Through the unique program Sounding Board, he remains in constant contact with his clients, serving as a sort of silent partner—a sounding board—with whom they can discuss the kinds of critical decisions business owners face daily.

Ed is a chartered certified landscape professional, a former exterior council member of the American Landscape Contractors of America, and a current member of its membership committee.

A resident of Wilton, Connecticut, where he lives with his wife and two sons, Ed now works as an author, public speaker, and seminar leader, continuing to teach others to reach the same level of success as he has throughout his career. Visit his Web site at harvestlandscapeconsulting.com or contact him at ed@harvestlandscapeconsulting.com or 203.858.4696.