Houston is currently the fourth largest city in America, and it’s growing rapidly. According to the organization Greater Houston Partnership, the city added 139,789 new residents in 2023, a 1.9-percent increase, behind only Dallas among America’s 20 largest metros.
Here’s another ranking to make Houston proud: No. 2 fastest-growing out of 150, and 203 percent growth in revenue, year over year. Those numbers belong to Houston-based Ethoscapes, where the company proudly finds itself as the second fastest-growing company on the 2024 LM150 list. Ethoscapes ranks No. 40 overall, with $80 million in revenue in 2023. The 2024 LM150 list, our annual ranking of the top 150 landscape and lawn care companies based on revenue, is sponsored by Aspire Software, John Deere and Weathermatic.
Ethoscapes as a brand may be relatively new, but the companies that comprise it are not. In 2020 Manny González, CEO, and his business partner, Stenning Schueppert, managing partner, Evolution Strategy Partners, purchased Westco Grounds Maintenance, a 44-year-old company. Two years later, Champions Hydro-Lawn, a 47-year-old company, joined the firm. And this year, Ethoscapes made another move and acquired Houston Landscapes Unlimited, a 41-year-old company.
These three prolific companies are all different from each other but mesh together nicely. Westco Grounds Maintenance does high-touch commercial maintenance grounds care. Houston Landscapes Unlimited performs construction and installation of irrigation and landscapes, as well as landscape maintenance. Champions Hydro-Lawn provides highly sought after flood and erosion control, rehabilitation and turf management services. Together they serve homeowner associations, municipal utility disctricts and commercial customers across the Greater Houston area. Ethoscapes also organically added Tree60 to meet the growing need and specialized care of trees.
“The Houston area is very flood prone, and Champions focuses on protecting communities from these types of natural weather events,” says González. “We serve an abundance of municipal utility districts that require our specialized services. There’s a lot of construction in it, a lot of rehabilitation and a lot of maintenance. The companies that comprise Ethoscapes make us very different than your standard landscape business. When you have the four legs to what Ethoscapes is comprised of, it really sets us apart.”
Mission control
González and Schueppert have known and worked with each other for over a decade. González was chairman of a few companies where Schueppert was the private equity partner.
González and Schueppert found the landscape and lawn care industry “compelling,” and when the opportunity to acquire Westco presented itself, they were off and running. The owner was hoping to sell and retire; González told Schueppert the business looked like something fun, and a good challenge.
“Manny stepped in as CEO and we’ve been working together closely ever since,” Schueppert says.
The partners believed they understood the Houston market and the industries.
“And obviously I think we’ve proven it, having the acumen and expertise to create a platform business, grow it, scale it and make it relevant to the particular market,” González says.
Both González and Schueppert have abundant experience in acquiring businesses and scaling them properly, González says. He says the key is to allow the qualified personnel to do the work they’re best at — be that landscaping, tree care, turf control, erosion control and so on. Their job, he says, is to empower their employees and provide the proper strategies, funding and guidance to grow the business.
To accelerate the momentum of the enterprise, another strategic move González and Schueppert made was adding Jerry Cavitt as CFO and COO. With this move, the idea of Ethoscapes was fully developed and became a reality with the three significant acquisitions, three smaller ones and the creation of the tree business.
Cavitt echoes González when he says the success of Ethoscapes comes in the form of a systems approach and letting the employees focus on what they’re best at.
“We try to position people in their role to their best and highest use, and then we handle all that other stuff behind the scenes at Ethoscapes,” Cavitt says. “Nobody likes messing with health benefits or workers’ compensation. Let’s strip all that out and make it a business that is agnostic to all of these brands, leave the brands alone and let them focus on operations.”
Cavitt also brought in what he calls best-in-class technology to the company, including Acumatica, which he says works great with Aspire Software and Inova. He made sure all the technology at Ethoscapes was fully cloud-based. By fully embracing technology, the company was set for liftoff.
One small step
Stenning Schueppert describes himself as an investor with a strategy and management consultant DNA. He says he’s different from the typical private equity professional who comes from a banking background. He went independent five years ago and says he’s having “a ton of fun” working with González and Cavitt on Ethoscapes.
“I look at businesses from a strategic standpoint of view … what makes businesses tick, versus spreadsheets and leverage and that kind of stuff,” he says. “I focus on deals with companies that make this country great … nowadays they’re called essential businesses. They used to be called industrial businesses — anything with a hard hat, dirty fingernails and steel-toed boots.”
Schueppert says Ethoscapes has been so successful because of its approach to culture and strategic acquisitions. He says it is important to respect the existing organizations and the staff.
“I understand the guys in the corner office, and I respect those that are out in the field every day making it happen,” he says. “But we respect the organizations, we respect the cultures of the organizations we brought in. You still have Westco, you still have Champions, you still have Houston Landscapes Unlimited. We’ve kept those brands and we’ve kept the team members in place.”
Cavitt echoes the importance of allowing the companies to maintain their unique identities.
“When you start thinking about acquiring these businesses that have such an identity… you’ve got an owner that’s been there for 40 years and started with his own push mower in the neighborhood. Others may attempt to just smash these kinds of businesses together,” Cavitt says. “But why would you do that? You’re creating cultural problems that don’t need to exist.”
Schueppert adds that some of the employees, for the first time ever, now have an equity stake in the businesses. That empowers employees to feel like true managers, like an owner of the business.
Beyond Space City
González says he’s excited that the “thesis” of Ethoscapes has proven to be successful over the last four years. But what’s next?
“Our plan is to continue the thesis, grow the business not only here in the Houston market and adding additional services to our value proposition, but expand to other parts of the state,” he says. “We’ll see where it takes us from there. But first, we wanted to prove it out. We’ve done that. We feel very comfortable, enlightened, excited, and tomorrow is another day.”
Editor’s Note: The 2024 LM150 list is sponsored by Aspire Software, John Deere and Weathermatic.
Read more LM150:
- LM150 2024 rankings: The industry’s top 150 revenue-generating firms
- LM150: 2024 Top 25
- LM150: 2024 list by region
- 2024 LM150: Onward and upward
- 2024 LM150: Ready for liftoff, this year’s biggest risers
- 2024 LM150: Designscapes Colorado continues a steady rise up the rankings
- 2024 LM150: From bishops to Cardinals and beyond with Focal Pointe
To view the complete list, breakdowns and company profiles, check out a PDF version here.
