Odds are Rebecca Wright would have attended the 2025 Jeffrey Scott Summer Growth Summit regardless of when and where it took place.
The vice president and chief operating officer at TriState Water Works in Cincinnati, Wright has been a member of Scott’s peer group program for four years — she’s involved with the second-in-command group now — and attended three previous iterations of the Summer Growth Summit. The fact that the 2025 edition was coming to Cleveland, her hometown, only sweetened the deal.
But if she needed any further convincing, the fact that Schill Grounds Management, an industry leader in commercial landscaping, was serving as the host quickly turned “likely to attend” into “wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
“We’re working to expand on the commercial side, so the chance to learn from a company like Schill about things like account management and how they work with property managers and HOAs made this a no-brainer,” Wright said.
“(The Summer Growth Summit) is a great way to meet other business owners who are experiencing the same things you are,” she continued. “You learn about problem solving, solutions, get feedback, network and just get a lot of support. Coming here always invigorates us and helps us finish out the season strong and start planning for next year.”
That was music to Scott’s ears, who was equally impressed with Schill’s willingness to so openly share the business strategies that helped the company rise to No. 31 overall on the LM150 list of the largest revenue-generating companies in the industry.
“I am so impressed with Schill; how polished and enthusiastic they have been,” he said. “It’s been great having them as hosts and having the people from their organization share with our community, the Jeffrey Scott team and some of our long-standing clients. It’s been next level.”
For Jerry Schill, the CEO of Schill Grounds Management who founded the company with his brother, Jim (now executive vice president), in 1993, the opportunity to host Jeffrey Scott’s Summer Growth Summit was not only a way to give back to the industry, but a chance to showcase the team that makes his company go every single day.
“I viewed it as a blessing and an honor to showcase our team’s abilities, their talents and just how highly engaged they are in what they do every day,” Schill said. “And I love the fact that we can bring all these people together and introduce them to the tools and experiences we’ve had over the last 30 years that made us successful, with the hope that they can become the change that we hope to see in the industry and within their organizations.”
At the Summer Growth Summit, the nearly 400 attendees toured a pair of Schill Grounds Management branches just outside of Cleveland — in North Ridgefield and Middleburg Heights — touring both facilities and taking in presentations that covered topics ranging from sales and operations to financial management and human resources.
There was also a day and a half of classroom education that included a deeper exploration of Schill’s business philosophy and success, in addition to presentations by several Jeffrey Scott Consulting staff members and peer group leaders that touched on labor acquisition and retention, business growth tactics, goal setting and management techniques for multi-cultural workforces.
“It’s been an amazing event, and I can’t give enough credit to Schill (and) the whole Jeffrey Scott team for being as open and honest about how they operate and sharing their keys to success,” said Jim Thrall, a controller with Naylor Landscape Management in Kalamazoo, Mich. “You don’t see that in a lot of other industries. The amount and depth of information we’ve received is really impressive.”
