Press

Equip Expo 2025 marks the fourth consecutive year that LM has presented education sessions at the show through a partnership with the Outdoor Power Equipment Institute (OPEI), which owns and operates Equip Expo.

Justin White, CEO of K&D Landscaping, Inc., will be presenting two of those sessions.

Labor Hour Management: The Most Important KPI in Your Business

Thursday, Oct. 23 | 11 a.m.-noon

In this high-energy session — led by Justin White with K&D Landscaping — attendees will learn how to effectively track, analyze and optimize labor hours to boost productivity, reduce costs and enhance overall business efficiency. Through practical strategies and real-world examples, participants will gain insights into leveraging labor hour management as a key performance indicator to drive profitability and sustainable growth in their operations.

A One-Stop Shop versus Doing One Thing Well

Friday, Oct. 24 | 12:30-1:30 p.m.

The phone rings, and on the other end, someone asks if your company can help them accomplish this one goal. On the one hand, it’s revenue. On the other, it isn’t necessarily what your company is good at. In this presentation, Justin White, CEO of K&D Landscaping, discusses the value of being a specialist over a generalist.

The second annual K&D Classic charity golf tournament, held Aug. 15 at Seascape Golf Club, raised $13,200 for the Friends of Watsonville Animal Shelter. More than 140 golfers participated in the sold-out event.

“Community involvement is one of our core fundamentals at K&D Landscaping,” said Justin White, CEO of K&D Landscaping. “Our annual golf tournament is not only a fun day for our team, partners, and friends, but also a meaningful way to raise money for local charities and support projects that make a lasting impact in the communities we serve.”

Justin White, CEO of K&D Landscaping, Inc., shares his insights on what industry pros can gain at conferences and trade shows.

“I have attended dozens … of trade shows, and the most valuable takeaway from a conference was at a small conference in San Francisco in 2016 when I learned about EOS — Entrepreneurial Operating Systems. Learning and implementing the EOS completely changed our trajectory. It aligned our team, improved accountability and helped us grow the company by a factor of 10 since implementing it!”

Team Engine, an AI-powered hiring, onboarding and communication platform, has partnered with The Disruptors, a community for landscaping business owners generating more than $1 million in revenue and scaling toward eight figures and more.

Team Engine and The Disruptors share the same mission of helping leaders grow their companies the right way through smart workforce strategies, strong culture and sustainable operations. The new partnership will give Disruptors members greater access to tools, resources and expertise to help them strengthen their teams and scale with confidence.

Let’s get one thing straight: You don’t need private equity to win. You don’t need millions in the bank or big backers to win. What you need is a clear vision, relentless execution and the guts to bet on yourself.

Whether you’re stepping into your family business or building one from scratch, this is your time. With technology advancing our businesses and an entire generation approaching retirement, there has never been a better time to grow, scale and monetize your hard work.

You can have the best vision, the sharpest strategy and a killer product, but if your culture is weak, none of it will stick. It’s like trying to build a skyscraper on sand. Growth doesn’t happen because you want it to. Growth happens because you’ve built a company where it can happen.

At K&D Landscaping, we’ve spent the last decade proving that principle. We’ve scaled fast, broken records and expanded into new markets not because we chased numbers, but because we built a culture that supports high performance and demands better.

So, how do you do it? Here’s the blueprint.

Like most things in life, growth for a landscaping business is not always linear. It takes several elements in order to boost your bottom line effectively.

Four green industry leaders who’ve seemed to figure out the secrets behind growing not only fast and furiously, but also slow and steady, sat down during the Lawn & Landscape Business Builders Summit to share their insights on growth.

They were Austin Ashmore, CEO of Sunrise Landscape; Justin Martin, president of Granite Hills Group; Justin White, CEO of K&D Landscaping; and Jerry Schill, CEO of Schill Grounds Management.

K&D Landscaping began in 1986 when chef Kendel White started mowing lawns in Monterey, CA. What began as a side hustle grew into a major local business. Today, under his son Justin White’s leadership, the company employs 140 people and generates $20M annually, with goals to reach $30M by 2030.

Justin White, CEO of K&D Landscaping, marks a new chapter in his mission to elevate the green industry with the launch of his “Raise the Bar” column in Landscape Management magazine. Justin draws on years of experience scaling K&D Landscaping and mentoring other landscape entrepreneurs through The JW Group and its online community, The Disruptors. The column will focus on actionable strategies for building scalable businesses, strengthening team culture, leveraging technology, and creating lasting impact.

At the Kress NEXT Summit, industry leaders shared firsthand insights on the adoption of battery-powered landscaping tools. Among the featured speakers was Justin White, CEO of K&D Landscaping, who joined fellow innovators to discuss the practical lessons learned from integrating electric equipment into their daily operations.