If you missed it, we recently shared a summary of our Apex 2025 End of Year celebration. Bland Landscaping CEO, Kurt Bland, dives deeper in his message below.
Last week, I was invited to attend the Apex Branch 2025 End of Year Celebration, and I was given the opportunity to speak about some special people, one of whom has been near and dear to me for a very long time. In preparation for my talk, I combed through hire dates in our employee census, and the results of my query surprised me in a positive way, which I will explain later.
Laurie Moffitt joined Bland Landscaping Company November 27th of 1995 as a temporary laborer. In 1996, she was promoted to Foreman, and from there she held various roles in Integrated Pest Management, Grounds Management, and Estate Gardening. For the last thirteen years she has led the Horticulture team on a private residence we manage, and she continuously earns the highest praise from her colleagues and customers. Laurie embodies our commitment to excellence as a team member, but that isn’t the story that brought me to tears in front of my peers last week, this is…
When I returned to North Carolina in 2002, my family already had a tremendous appreciation and love for Laurie. Hailing from the same Scottish clan as my maternal great grandfather’s ancestral family, she is an accomplished bagpiper whose pipes she blew before company celebrations at the request of my mother. She loved that sound and she loved Laurie.
When my wife, also of Scottish heritage, and I got married in the mountains of North Carolina in 2004, Laurie blessed us with her bagpipes.
When we buried my mother in December 2006, one of her dying wishes was for Laurie to play amazing grace, while standing on the hill above the cemetery during the final moments of her interment.
When I had to find the strength to stand in front of all of our employees as a 30-year-old man and explain that we had lost our matriarch, it was Laurie who joined me in the loft of our office to mourn and find the voice within me to address the audience and explain the situation.
I don’t like using the term “family business” to describe our company nowadays, but there are pieces of this business that are so inextricably linked to my life that they will always be part of my family and our story. Laurie is certainly one of those and I will always cherish those moments even though they are some of the most challenging moments we have endured as a team.
None of this is a surprise because they are memories that stay fresh in my mind and they come back every time I walk through the hallowed garage doors of that building. What was a surprise, though, was when I looked at the census and saw how many employees we have with more than 10 years of service, 20 years service, and even as many as 38 years of service! I knew that we had a lot of long-term dedicated team members, and when we acquire a company, we inherit the hire date of each employee, protecting their benefit status. Even still, until I counted, I did not expect to see:
- 17 employees with 25+ years
- 38 employees with 20+ years
- 73 employees with 15+ years
- 124 employees with 10+ years
- 258 employees with 5+ years
It’s about people!
—Kurt Bland, Bland Landscaping CEO
If you’re thinking about joining our team, we’d love to have you. Be sure to check out our Careers page for more information and a link to our available job positions throughout the southeast.