Bob Grover of Pacific Landscape Management Receives Founders' Award

Bob Grover, a long-time advocate for the landscape industry and of Aspire software, is the first recipient of the Founders' Award from FieldRoutes and Aspire.

Grover the president of Pacific Landscape Management, received the award at Ignite, the customer conference for FieldRoutes and Aspire software partners, on Tuesday afternoon in Orlando, FL.

"I am very humbled, and I will give a lot of credit to my team, who aspired to be an early adopter of the Aspire platform," Grover said after the presentation.

The Founders' Award recognizes the work by Aspire co-founders Mark Tipton and Kevin Kehoe, who wanted to support the community of hardworking landscapers and accelerate the industry's transformation, and by Jared Green, who sought to empower pest control operators to grow and achieve their ultimate success through what is now known as FieldRoutes.

Pacific Landscape Management is located in Hillsboro, OR, just west of Portland, and opened in 2001. The team of 500 serves more than 2,000 properties in the western Oregon and Washington region from Everett, WA, to Corvallis, OR.

Grover and his team were early adopters of technology in their business operations and are active in the National Association of Landscape Professionals. Grover has been a long-time member of the Government Relations Council and is a past NALP president. 

Grover continues to lead his team to be engaged in many other industry and charitable associations. Grover routinely provides feedback and insights to the Aspire product team, helping to shape the system in use today.

"We were a customer (of another company), and when Mark left and partnered with Kevin, I was very intrigued and presented the idea to my team," Grover said. "I said, 'Early adopters go through a lot of tough iterations.' And they said, 'No, we are all in.' And they're all in. We've been in since the beginning. I'm just can't believe where we're at today. All of the functionality is just incredible. Our team is continuing to push the envelope on how we utilize Aspire and continue to push them to continue to develop it as they do."

The Founders’ Award recognizes an individual who truly embodies all four core values – innovative, selfless, driven, and a closer – not only within their own company but also with the wider community and industry.

"I don't know where I got that energy, but it doesn't stop," Grover said. "I'm very passionate about just about everything I do. Sometimes that's irritating to my wife and children and employees, but it has driven us as a team to be great and I'm never going to slow down."

The Founders' Award capped the Excellence Awards presentation on Tuesday afternoon. Aspire and FieldRoutes each presented four other awards—the Trailblazer Award, Impact Award, Rookie of the Year Award, and Excellence Achieved Award—which represent the company's core values: boldly innovate, put others first, drive success, and finish strong.

The Aspire Excellence Award winners:

Trailblazer Award

Seth Pflum — Grunder Landscaping, Dayton, OH

About the winner: Pflum and Grunder Landscaping went live on Aspire in January 2020 and have grown revenue from $4.5 million to more than $13 million in 2024. Pflum also has leveraged Aspire to eliminate waste and overhead, improving margins and increasing efficiency, while also integrating other software like PropertyIntel and Inova. Beyond Grunder, Pflum has shared his learnings and strategies with hundreds of companies across the country through his work with The Grow Group, helping them achieve similar results.

On receiving the honor: "Aspire has changed my life as the owner of Grunder Landscaping Co. Seth has been the best thing that's ever happened to our company. The journey he's taken us on by implementing Aspire, by getting all of us to embrace it—all of that credit goes to him. I like to say good managers make good decisions with good information. The information that Seth has championed in getting out of Aspire has been incredible and has taken our company to a whole new level. Things I only dreamed of in the past, I know for sure we can achieve them. It's a great honor. I'm really glad for Seth to get recognized." – Marty Grunder, owner, Grunder Landscaping Co.

On leading and making an impact: "Seth has a boundless energy for just winning and achieving things. I have a lot of energy myself, and I've never been around anyone in my life that goes after things the way he does. The vision is very clear on where we're going and what we're going to do, and Seth knows that implementing Aspire and using it on a daily basis, getting people to embrace it, that's going to be the key to our success. We have learned what we're really good at through working in Aspire, and we've learned what we're not good at. We've learned what we need to fix. Aspire gives us an incredible insight into the business and enables us to get better on a daily basis."

Impact Award

Scott Knussmann and Roxanne Jones — Sunscape Landscaping, Austin, TX

About the winners: Knussmann and Jones have teamed to serve multiple communities through their work at Sunscape. An early customer of Aspire, Knussmann has dedicated himself to learning the ins, outs, whys, and what's next of Aspire. He prides himself as the person to go to for guidance, and answers, and to help solve hard problems, even beyond his teammates to countless others throughout the industry. 

Jones and her team have dedicated tremendous time and effort this year to supporting Morgan’s Wonderland, an ultra-accessible theme park full of rides, playgrounds, water features, and more for special-needs children and adults. Her team donated landscape materials, installed plants, provided landscaping guidance and support to the park's on-site maintenance team, and even provided consulting services on water usage throughout the park.

On receiving the honor: "It speaks volumes for what my team has done, being recognized in our community and then some, to be nominated for something on a national level like Aspire is, that's pretty incredible. It speaks volumes for the impact that we've made, not just in our community but everywhere." – Roxanne Jones, head of sales, Sunscape Landscaping.

"It's a great honor for Sunscape Landscaping as a team. With Roxanne, we're a team effort. I've taken the time over the years to try to understand the whole capabilities of Aspire. It's always felt like family with Aspire. I just have a little bit bigger family over at Sunscape." – Scott Knussmann, account manager, Sunscape Landscaping.

On leading and making an impact: "I have an amazing team that I get to lead every day. It helps add to that energy you put forth every day. We have an amazing team that does most of the work. I just get to coordinate what we're doing. They make the magic happen." – Jones.

"It's about helping others. I like to watch people grow in this industry. I have four children, so I'm very used to running on empty." – Knussmann.

Rookie of the Year Award

Eric Hill and Amanda Rhodes — Fay-Ark Lawn, Farmington, AR

About the winners: Hill and Rhodes knew they were losing opportunity with their former tech provider. They committed to doing implementation right, even while running the company each day and treading water. They went live within 90 days, got their team members using Crew Mobile, and immediately saw the features of Aspire come together. Shortly after going live, northwest Arkansas was hit with multiple tornadoes in May, and the Fay-Ark team spent three weeks serving their community with pro bono work removing fallen trees from cars, homes, and power lines, as well as endless storm cleanup and hauling. Some would call those three weeks a setback, but the Fay-Ark team persevered and has been able to expand its fleet by one new truck already.

On receiving the honor: "We work really hard out there. And coming through a transition of implementation of a new software, and then getting out there and hitting it hard watching my guys utilize this in the field and everybody start coming together, it has just been a real relationship-builder and a foundation-builder for our company." – Amanda Rhodes, vice president, Fay-Ark Lawn Co. On leading and making an impact: "Mainly from our guys and from our other companies and our clients. We work hard for everybody out there, and we utilize our core values. It brings a lot of energy to the table, and we're able just to throw it out there and implement it the way we need." – Rhodes.

Excellence Achieved Award

Mike Mendez — Mariani Premier Group, Lake Bluff, IL

About the winner: Mendez leads technology efforts across Mariani, a collection of more than 20 companies offering landscape services in 45 locations across 17 states. He not only supports onboarding newly acquired companies on Aspire but also tackles complex challenges by proposing and creating solutions with Aspire. With nearly 20 years in the industry, Mendez has overseen the growth of Mariani from $20 million to $90 million. Mendez has been an invaluable partner with the Aspire Product, Data, and Implementation teams to expand capabilities, including the API library and backend database infrastructure. Mendez lends his expertise and knowledge to a variety of people, from his peers at Mariani and employees at Aspire, to those at other companies and throughout the industry.

On receiving the honor: "Obviously it's the first year, but we have a very large team. We're a large organization that moved to Aspire. To be recognized with all the competition and everybody that's using the system and doing everything, it's quite an honor." – Mike Mendez, director of operational technology, Mariani Premier Group.

On leading and making an impact: "The energy just comes naturally. It's fun to be working with something like Aspire and the team that we have at Premier Group and all the companies that we have, 20-plus now, the different regions of the country, different personalities, different ways of doing things. That's where the excitement and drive comes from, the different challenges that each day represents with every company." – Mendez.