in one day, and really establish you as an employ- ment brand, I think it speaks to students differently,” Posehn says. “I can tell you whatever I want to tell you on my web page or on a brochure, but when you come and meet with a student, they see your excitement about them. They see your excitement about your company and your brand, and that speaks to them, and that gets them excit- ed. Coming to NCLC brings your company to life.” Tim Lindgren, owner/founder of Lindgren Landscape, based


in Fort Collins, Colorado, says they’ve been coming for six years and he’s always amazed by the number of students passion- ate about the industry. “It’s the number one place to recruit,” Lindgren says.


“I can’t think of a better place to have such a captive audience of ones that you really want to have in here. These kids are serious about doing this as a career, and landscaping has historically been thought of as just a job, and these are kids who want to spend the rest of their lives doing this. This is the place to be if you want to capture those kids.” Jim Engineer, national director of marketing & communications for Visterra Landscape Group, based in Rosemont, Illinois, says it’s critical for landscape com- panies to participate in the career fair, not just for talent acquisition but also for brand recognition. “The future is bright, and there’s just tremendous talent


here,” Engineer says. “You can’t not be here if you’re a landscap- ing company.”


COMPETITION DAY After seeing the amount of opportunities available to them during the career fair, students moved into the competitive events starting Thursday evening. These competitions served as a time for them to explore aspects of the industry they’d never considered before or a chance to continue to hone their craft. For instance, Michael Vignone, a junior majoring in plant sciences at Penn State, says it’s his third time attending. He enjoys coming back year after year and refining his skills in the irrigation assembly event. “It’s a good opportunity to get hands-on experience, but to also talk with other schools and see what other schools are doing,” Vignone says. “It’s just nice to see what other people are learning, what other people are doing because you’re all going to end up in the same industry.” Trishia Nguyen, a junior horticulture


major at Texas A&M, notes that com- peting in NCLC is a wonderful resume booster for students. She also finds the event very inspiring. “Sometimes the whole world can be


really negative, and then coming here is such a breath of fresh air,” Nguyen says. “I really enjoy that part of NCLC. If you’re in the landscape industry, why wouldn’t you want to come here?” Joshua Fain, a junior majoring in landscape management at Auburn Uni- versity, says it is his third year competing in irrigation assembly and landscape


National Association of Landscape Professionals 15


plant installation. He’s also tried out other events like employee development and tractor loader backhoe operation. Fain encourages other students to attend because there is an opportunity for every single person regardless of their interests. “The competition, the career fair, the work-


shops, networking, all of that has been super valuable to me, and something that I couldn’t even put a price tag on,” Fain says. “It’s something that you just don’t get with a regular degree just going to school. NCLC has just given me a bunch of opportunities outside of just my degree that I wouldn’t have had otherwise.”


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