HOW I DO IT
Do You Need a CTO for Your Company?
By Jill Odom
YOU’VE HEARD OF CEOS, CFOS and even COOs but what about a CTO? Chief Technical Officer may sound like a position that’s only relevant for tech or social media companies, but more lawn care and landscape companies are adding this position to their organizations as they see the value it offers. For Level Green Landscaping in Up- per Marlboro, Maryland, they created the position around four years ago. Michael Mayberry, the company’s CTO, was an operations manager at the time and he had a background of developing apps in his free time.
Mayberry says half the reason Level Green hired him in the first place was because they saw value in what he was doing on the development side of things. “The ownership definitely sees the benefit to this position and to bringing technology into what we do every day because it removes friction, whether it’s internal or external,” he says. At The Greenery, Inc. based on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, their CTO position was created officially in 2019, but Janet Davoli, their current CTO, says she’d been performing many of the tasks before the title was made. “The Greenery always wants to remain a green industry leader by pro-
Michael Mayberry, CTO for Level Green Landscaping
viding a safe, quality product with great customer service,” says Davoli, LIC. “To achieve this and stay competitive, it is important to keep moving forward with technology and to keep the processes lean and maximize efficiencies. The CTO position came into being as we realized we needed to invest heavily in choosing the right technology and to implement it smoothly so we could achieve our goals. This is exactly what we did. We need someone fully dedicated to ensuring our technology matches our needs and provides more opportunities.”
WHAT DOES A CTO DO? Just like how a CFO oversees all the financial activities of the company, the CTO is responsible for all the technology
Janet Davoli, CTO for The Greenery, Inc. in your business.
In Mayberry’s case, he says this includes everything from handling day-to- day issues like a printer not working to connecting with other companies that are making technology developments in the industry. Thanks to his development background, Mayberry will create apps that help meet a need in the company. He says his main goal is to make sure Level Green is on the cutting edge of everything.
“I look at other industries that are far ahead of the landscaping industry be- cause it’s no secret that the landscaping industry is extremely far behind other industries when it comes to adapting technology that exists already,” Mayberry says.
22 The Landscape Professional //July/August 2021
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