my time between the two and knew I needed to pick one and focus on it. I chose Evergreen Turf. I took over sales, marketing and installation, which we view as an extension of sales, and Jeff concentrated on the operations. We play to each other’s strengths and weaknesses.”

Lora and Jimmy with the three older grandkids, Tylee, Kynlee and Tanin.

most important in the eyes of the customer. Tey agreed that great customer service would let each customer know they felt the same way. To accomplish that, they would need knowledgeable, dedicated employees who not only provided service on target and on time, but who also projected the company attitude to each customer. Tey agreed that sod production needed to have operational efficiency in its set up and flow to maximize use of time and equipment and make a profit.

Fox says, “Ninety days after Jeff’s call we were plowing dirt.”

Tat was April of 1999. Evergreen Turf started as a 120-acre sod farm near Chandler, Arizona, focused on supplying homeowners and landscape contractors with an elite, golf-quality turfgrass product. “I was president, but Jeff ran it,” says Fox. “From the beginning it was his decisions and drive and direction that put our master plan into action. By 2001, Evergreen Turf hit our five-year projections.”

Choosing a Focus At that point Nettleton told Fox he needed some help and they were going to have to hire a controller. Fox says, “I was selling a bit of our sod on the golf side, but I’d started another marketing and sales company, Total Turf Resources, and had three partners in that. I’d been splitting

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Drawing on the insight he’d gained on the business operations of landscapers, nurseries and garden centers, Fox started building a distributor network. He knew Evergreen Turf would have to establish very strict pricing guidelines to allow wholesale customers to make the margins they required to sell sod profitably if he also would be selling directly to the homeowner and contractor. “Tat put us in the unique position of selling to all the levels: the resellers, such as Ewing, SiteOne and Horizon; the retailers; and the end users,” he says.

With more time to fine-tune operations, Nettleton “brought increased efficiencies to the table,” reports Fox. “His goal was—and still is—to automate as much as possible in everything from equipment to computer systems to communications. For example, when buying mowers, he’ll look for the largest cutting capacity we can use effectively. A few more inches cut with each pass really add up when you have acres to mow.”

Evergreen Turf joined Turfgrass Producers International (TPI) in 2001, tapping into the resources it offers, including connecting with other growers. Fox was active in the Arizona Nursery Association and the Cactus and Pine Golf Course Superintendents Association and has served on the boards of both.

Tey also started working with sports fields. Fox dug in to learn how best to serve another highly- specialized market. “Like golf course superintendents, sports turf managers are professionals who know their turfgrass and what they

expect from it. Teir packed field- use schedules make the timeframe for field installation or renovation incredibly tight. We understand that and deliver what we promise. Tat segment of our business really took off and keeps growing.”

What started as a 120-acre farm in 1999 had become a 1300 acre farm by 2006. Tey had eight installation crews and were shipping 30 to 35 trucks of sod a day.

Always seeking greater efficiency, in 2006 and 2007, Nettleton worked with Mark McWhorter of NG Turf in Georgia to develop a harvest and dispatch software program. With the computerized system, when an order is entered it generates a harvest sheet (or cut sheet), assigns it to a farm and then it is automatically dispatched. Fox says, “It takes about an hour working on the computer to organize this and then manually make any tweaks it needs. It makes life so much easier for the farm and dispatch people.”

Tey’ve been providing hydrosprigging for fairway grassing on golf courses as well as mechanical planting and, of course, sodding. Fox adds, “We also offer fairway conversions and transition sprigging, all enhanced with our exclusive stolon handling system. Keeping up with technology is a must to survive in farming.”

The Crash Like any other business, sod farms have to adapt to changes in the economy. Fox and Nettleton had become “pretty good” at analyzing the market and basing their production on what they anticipated their needs would be. But no one was prepared for the crash of 2008. Fox says, “We lost 40 percent of our business, almost overnight.”

So they made “a few” adjustments. Initially they took some fields out of production, but kept most of them in turfgrass at a maintenance level.

TPI Turf News July/August 2017