Te Sales Centre in Calgary opened in the early summer of 2009, a big step in Eagle Lake’s Innovative Evolution.
Heuver calls TPI a continuing source of great ideas, noting most of the innovations they’ve incorporated into their business have developed “from something I’ve seen at the different TPI shows or are associated with someone I’ve talked to there.”
Te sod farm’s initial product was Kentucky bluegrass. With the harvest season running from approximately mid-April to mid-October or mid-November, that only allowed about 100 days to do business each year. Tough they’d been doing very well, consistently selling out each season, Heuver was concerned about dependence on a single crop. His comment about that to TPI past president Glenn Rehbein led to the response, “Tere are lots of ways to skin a cat.” Which spurred the always “out of the box” thinker Heuver to explore not only growing other grasses, but also “seeking innovative opportunities to grow the business,” that began an ongoing evolution.
TPI members Ron and Steve Schiedel of the GreenHorizons Group connected Heuver with the BigYellowBag®, the company’s first non-sod product. Claus Zander’s presentation about their Stonemen’s Valley stone and landscape products yard sparked another big step. In 2008, Eagle Lake purchased land in an easily-accessible industrial area in Calgary, about 30 miles (48.28 km) from the sod production farm. In early summer of 2009, they opened a 6,000 square foot (557.42 sq. m.) Sales Centre and a four-acre (1.62-hectare) supply yard there offering hardscape materials such as decorative natural stone and precast products, outdoor lighting, pond and water feature materials, and multiple other landscape accessories.
TPI Turf News January/February 2019
Heuver reports, “We’ve been growing by about 15 to 20 percent per year since 2008. We did experience the recession here, but determined to act boldly because costs, including land prices, had gone down.” Eagle Lake now owns 1,200 acres (485.62 hectares) of land near Strathmore, Alberta.
Initially the Sales Centre and sod farm operated as two separate businesses. Heuver says, “We reorganized and rebranded, bringing all segments of the business into one entity, Eagle Lake Professional Landscape Supply. Sales and distribution are operated from the Calgary Sales Centre and administration and production from the Strathmore Turf Farm.”
Innovative Outdoor Solutions “Innovation Outdoors” is more than the company’s tagline. Heuver says, “It’s an intrinsic part of our corporate culture, and it’s a brand promise that’s embraced by each of our employees. Since our company’s inception, we’ve worked hard to deliver on this promise. We’re all about service and how we can make our customers’ lives easier. Our stated goal is: everything required by a landscape professional can be sourced, rented, purchased and delivered conveniently and efficiently through our Sales Centre.”
Heuver reports he’s evolved, too. “When I first purchased this business from my father, I was the worker getting it all done; the salesman who sold the sod, the truck driver who delivered it, and the office manager that handled the payables and receivables. In the worker role,
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