Headquartered in Rosemont, Ill., Visterra is a platform company with partners in 11 states. It provides a wide variety of services, including commercial landscape maintenance, construction, enhancements, irrigation, portering, fencing, snow and ice management, power sweeping and pressure washing services.
The company grew 49 percent from 2023 to 2024, which pushed it to No. 32 on the 2025 LM150 list. It is expecting a 125-percent increase in EBITDA this year, according to Alan Handley, Visterra president and CEO.
Predicting pain points
Having launched companies in other industries in the past, Handley and his core team looked at what was and wasn’t working in the landscape industry to create a business that would meet clients’ needs and better support employees.
“What makes us very different from our competitors is that we really embrace and want to push forward and celebrate the entrepreneurial spirit,” Handley says.
The team discussed the pain points they’d faced in their previous businesses to figure out what they wanted to do differently with Visterra. That led them to purchase the tools and technology they would need before acquiring any partner companies.
With the help of Trinity Hunt Partners, they spent nearly $10 million on enterprise resource planning software, camera systems, fleets and safety equipment. Next, they focused on finding the right companies to bring under the Visterra umbrella.
The companies it acquires retain their business names and day-to-day operations, and Visterra provides them with support, including safety oversight, training, technology and insurance. Its partner companies also can cross-sell their services to Visterra’s other geographic markets if those commercial customers have operations in those locations. There are currently eight partner companies.
Being able to take the services it provides in one location to another one of the partner companies has played a role in their growth, Handley says. For example, one of Visterra’s acquisitions in Ohio offered large commercial street sweeping, so someone from that location trained teams in other states on how to perform and successfully sell that service.
All about retention
At the heart of Visterra’s growth are the employees who make it possible. However, hiring enough field and office workers to keep up with the company’s 12-percent organic growth across different regions has been a challenge, Handley says.
To combat the challenge, the company has increased wages and expanded the bonus-eligible pool of employees, training opportunities and career path options for all levels. Its field employees also receive an industry-leading 401(k) plan and free medical insurance.
Community outreach is another important aspect of connecting with prospective employees, and Visterra provides bonuses to its current team members who bring in new hires.
“We really have to spend a lot of time, energy and money to make sure we retain and develop all of our amazing teammates,” Handley says. “It’s really all about the people and their families.”
A lot of companies claim to be servant-leadership organizations, but Handley says Visterra truly implements and believes in that model.
“If your organizational tension rests anywhere outside of field labor — like productivity, retention, recruitment and safety — it’s very hard to grow your business,” Handley says. “At Visterra, our field employees are the cornerstone of our operational excellence.”
In 2024, Visterra’s retention rate was 97 percent for office employees and 99 percent for their field labor.
“Our goal is to continue to build the most collaborative, people-first commercial landscaping enterprise across the United States,” Handley says.
