#188 - PART 2, Rain Bird Irrigation Pro Summit: The Modern Irrigation Contractor

In the irrigation industry today, the role of the contractor is changing.

It's no longer just about installing sprinklers. Contractors are managing water.

They're using connected controllers, weather data, soil moisture sensors,

flow sensors, and software to manage irrigation systems more efficiently than ever before.

So at the Rainbird Contractor Pro Summit, I wanted to talk with contractors working in the field

today to understand how technology is shaping the modern irrigation business.

If you are an irrigation professional, old or new, who designs, installs, or maintains high-end

residential commercial or municipal properties, and you want to use technology to improve your

business to get a leg up on your competition, even if you're an old school irrigator from the days

of hydraulic systems, this show is for you.

Steve, welcome to the Rainbird Contractor Summit. How are you doing today?

Doing great, doing great. Tell us about your business and what you do.

Yes, so I work with quench irrigation. I'm a technician there, and water management guy.

So we monitor certain sites, make sure the water usage is up to bar.

So I've been doing that with quench for a few years, and I'm liking it.

Awesome. Did you start in the business with quench?

Yes, so street out of college, I went with quench, started as a tech,

worked my way there, and we're starting a water management program with certain sites,

and I got into that, now we're working with them.

Awesome. What are you excited about in irrigation right now?

Honestly, I'd say all the new tech. I've been seeing a lot of AI applications with it,

and I think that's pretty exciting seeing what we can actually get to do with AI

and all the new tech. I think that's pretty excited.

Are there any tools that you use technology-wise in the service business right now?

Oh, yeah. I mean, we use the smart controllers, weather stations,

all that Wi-Fi-based for water management. That's all technology applications, and it's pretty

cool to see how much it helps in the field. What brought you to this event today?

Quench, my company was here, and they asked if I wanted to come, and I thought it'd be great

to learn about it. Is there anything particular that you're hoping to learn today?

I think about the new products, wireless, new, and new,

sack things that we haven't seen. That's kind of what I'm looking forward to learning from them.

What percent of controllers that you guys monitor today are connected to the cloud?

Or clients, I mean? Clients? I'd say over half. When we

go to install new control, there's a lot of the old ones, the mechanical ones that you spin

with the dials. Every time we go to upgrade a controller, our first thing is to go to Wi-Fi,

save them money in the long run. Not just because you can monitor it through your phone,

but also because it'll save you water, it'll save you money, it'll save you the headache of,

not knowing your leak. We'll know there's a leak beforehand. If you have a flow sensor,

things of that nature. What gets you up in the morning? What are you most excited about

on this irrigation industry today? I would say it's a good question. Something new every day.

It's not just like you go in and do the same thing every day. You go to a site you don't know

where you're going to find. You see something new every day. It's a different application. We

made a change of valve in a certain place. In another site, it's a completely different process.

So you always have to be thinking and attacking in a different way.

You're seeing, when we rephrase, what do you see changing in the way you do business in the next

three years? Technology. I think there's going to be a lot more sensors. Smart controllers are

really taking over. Not just because you see you can use your own phone, but people understand the

benefits of it, saving money, all that stuff. So I think it's going to be a lot more technology-based

sensors, a lot more water management, saving the water. That's the worst thing.

Okay. Excellent. Well, thank you for sharing today. Really appreciate it.

Steve's perspective shows how irrigation is becoming increasingly technology-driven,

both in practice and in the vision of contractors today. But technology alone doesn't solve

problems. Experience in the field still matters. So next, I spoke with Travis and Andy Childs,

two contractors with decades of experience installing and troubleshooting irrigation systems.

What's up, guys? Let's start with your name and the name of your company and where you guys are

located. My name is Travis Childs. I work with Morgan's irrigation out of Bayville, New Jersey.

And I'm Andy Childs. I work for Landscape Maintenance out of New Brunswick.

All right. And how long you guys been doing irrigation?

I've been doing it 22 years now. Fantastic.

20 years for me. Wow. What got you into the business originally? Why irrigation?

Needed a job. Okay. Fair enough. Somebody offered me one and he needed a job and I offered him.

You guys have how long have you known each other? That long?

Well, we're brothers. Okay. So you actually know each other.

I thought you were saying we're brothers. Like we're bros.

No, no. Okay. We're brothers. All right.

We're brothers. Yeah.

And you don't work for the same company.

Yeah. We started that way.

Yes. But everything moves on at some point.

Yeah. Fantastic. All right. Before we get into stuff happening here today,

what technologies have you seen 20 years ago that were like, you know,

influential in how you do business today?

Fortunately, when we both kind of got into it, we had a boss that didn't take no for an answer.

So we started with two wire right away, big main lines, central control systems.

So we got our hands into technology pretty quickly.

Excellent. Okay.

I have to agree. I think two wire was probably, we were got very lucky with that, you know,

jumped right on it. The two core, I think is where we started with the two wire and Hunter.

And I mean, it was, it got really put us ahead of the game, I think, as far as, you know,

putting out into the New Jersey area, nobody else was doing it. We were doing it.

Yeah. Fantastic. But before we talk about what you may have seen here today,

it sounds like you guys have been doing two wire for a long time.

Very long. If there's people listening in various parts of the country that have never done

two wire or are new to two wire, what are some tricks of the trade that you've learned

that are like best practices for putting in new two wire?

So I'll start with, I mean, splices, splices are huge. You know, leave a lot of extra slack.

You know, don't be afraid to be able to pull it out of the ground. Those are kind of

really big pointers I would give.

Yeah. Yeah. All of that splices are number one. And get yourself a good multimeter that

mulch with a milliamp clamp. And then your life gets a lot easier.

Okay. That was my second question. Is what tool must you have on the truck in order to be successful?

Yeah. It's a milliamp clamp.

Meter that's, you're going to pull your hair out if you don't have some of that.

And can you just walk us through quickly? I know you could probably talk for 15 minutes and

how to troubleshoot a two wire. But what would somebody, what do you do with the milliamp clamp meter?

So you'll clamp it on the wire and follow the, when you get a dead short, your milliamps are

going to be really high. And you put that clamp on there and you start following the high numbers

down your wire path. If the number all of a sudden gets low, you pass your problem. Back up a

little bit, you'll find it. Okay. So do you have any like land speed records for finding failed

two wire devices, failed splices? I mean, you could say sometimes you just get lucky. Yeah. And it's

just you hit it. I think one of the best things that we had learned as far as like tricks of the

trade, you know, and they talked about a kind of in here is don't go box by box. It'll take you

forever. Cutting half, cut it in half again within about I think what six I think is kind of like

the prime number within six splices, you should find a pretty much finder issue. Multimeter 100%,

you don't have a multimeter, go home. You know, you can do anything else as long as you have the

multimeter. Right on. But my record, yeah, first box got lucky. Yeah. Yeah, I've gotten lucky with

the first box. And also, you know, I've had to do all seven steps, but I've had to do all seven.

And sometimes do it again, you know, just stepping over something or missing a box in the ground

eventually where the problem is grass grows over it. So yeah, but every now and again, you get lucky

and it's the first box. Have you seen anything here today as it relates to what Rainbow

to show with their controllers that might make doing two wire easier, different, better?

So I think I mean, every year they come out with just better controllers, just in general,

better features. I think a lot of the diagnostics are different now than they were 10 years ago, 20 years

ago. When you think you've seen it all, they just, I mean, they, it's amazing what these guys do,

they just know. Yeah, the IVM that they've come out with to, you know, basically cut your splices in

half, you know, getting rid of 50% of all your splices, most times your splice is going to be the

problem. So by eliminating half of them in the installation process, you eliminate, you know, 50%

of any potential problems, which is, it's a big deal, you know, to eliminate 50%. Yeah, and do

you guys both do new installations? Okay, so how do you determine if you're going to use a two wire

system or not? The size of the job probably is going to be the biggest determining factor,

how many zones in the end you're going to do. And what is the, what is that number for both of you?

Yeah, I think it's more distance. It's not necessarily its own count, but I'm sorry, it's not

necessarily the zone count, but distance traveled. I mean, you could have a big residential home and

still do conventional, but you could also have a big residential home and, and you just have to pull

a main really far, might as well pull the two wires instead of a strand of 13. It's just less,

less issues, less problems to deal with. And if the, if price wasn't an obstacle, would you use

two wire everywhere? Everywhere. Yes. 100%. So if you could afford it, if a project, the customer

could afford it, you would prefer to use it everywhere. 100%. Yeah. Wow, right on. Outside of,

you know, true irrigation technology, are you guys using other, any other tools in your business,

AI software, any other new technology that's improved the way you do what you do?

I mean, so I do a lot of, or where I have a handful of central control systems, so I remotely

log into a number of sites and manage them, whether it's maxi-com or site control or using the IQ,

I do quite a bit of that. So that's a, you know, big, big help, big savings, be able to, you know,

see a site without being on site, flow control, flow sensors are huge, you know, that'll, they can

you know, save you time and also generate income, you know, with unseen problems that nobody's

reported yet, but you can see it with your flow sensor from your computer at home. So that's a big,

big plus in the industry. Yeah. Right on. So thinking about that, where do you see the irrigation

contracting business in three years? How might it be different because of technology?

I mean, I, me personally, so I work for landscape maintenance in New Jersey. I live in Tennessee,

which is kind of unheard of for the irrigation world. Just down the street. Just down the street.

So I think as technology gets further along and you have people like my brother or I, with a lot

of experience that can, you know, walk people through a job or we don't need to say we can

just get them to do it. I think you might see in the industry more situations like mine where

somebody's remoting into do a lot of the managing. Mm-hmm. Okay. Would you also see that,

let's say you never left Tennessee and landscape LMS hired another new person.

Could you be their eyes and ears and they are just holding the tools and you're just telling

you what to do remotely? You see that as a potential opportunity? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I do some of that

already. You know, with being able to FaceTime people, my guy's on a job. He has a problem.

It's like, hey, turn on your FaceTime. Let's let me look at it. Let's talk about what you have

in front of you. And then I can always walk them through the problem. Yeah. We hear one of the

problems is finding good help labor. How do you find a trained irrigation technician? But maybe

you don't find a trained irrigation technician. You got one and you now have 50 guys out there.

You are 100% right. It is very hard, especially find young people who want to get into the industry.

I personally find that if they don't know anything, it's better because you can teach them the

right way. They are not stuck in their ways. I just want to touch on a question you asked

earlier about the ability with the remote or the technology part of it. I also see on the

residential side, it's a big selling point to the resident to say, hey, you can run this from your

phone. You can be in California on vacation and, hey, I forgot to turn off my sprinklers and

just buy a touch of a button or change your times and all of that. So I think that part of the

industry, especially getting not just in the contractor side of it, but the resident's owner's

side of it, they eat it up. They love it. It's just like rain sensors for that matter. A rain

sensor, you don't have to go out there and turn it off. You just know it's going to do it for you.

And I think they just get better and better every year.

Excellent. So irrigation can be fun. It can be tricky. It can be boring at times. What

motivates you to get out of bed every day and do what you do?

Me personally, it's the challenge. Again, when I first started, my brother's been doing it for

a year or two longer than myself. When I first got into it, it was a job. It was a, all right,

this is what I'm going to do this summer. And the next summer, who knows? I was a young guy

early 20s. Nowadays, it's more, I want to not only push myself to see new things. I've seen

a ton of different things, but just the, the ability to, for a new guy to say, hey, I'm stuck.

And you go, I know that. And just makes you feel good about it that you can say, let me walk you

through it, face timing, talking on the phone. It's just those kinds of things are, they're,

they're the good, the best motivation for myself to get out. That's so good. Yeah. I'm right there

with them, you know, the ever changing. I mean, it's, you're kind of working on sprinklers every

day, but it, you know, especially on the service side of things, you're out there seeing new things

and new problems constantly. And even, you know, we're 20, 20 plus years, both of us. And

still, we will come across something we haven't seen a new challenge that we have to figure out.

And, you know, we both like to figure things out and come up with a solution. I agree,

100%. And maybe with that in mind, if what tool doesn't exist, tool or product, it doesn't

exist that you wish existed. That's a really good question. Boy, I'd have to think about that

for a second. You're allowed to think about it. The only thing I could kind of maybe think is

something AI derived, you know, something that could maybe take that plethora of different

options and kind of say, hey, focus over here. I don't know if that's coming down the

pike. I don't have to even possible. Well, that would be my thought of something. Okay, interesting,

like if there's a problem going on, describe everything you know about the problem and maybe

have it give you like a tree of three possible routes. Right. Okay, especially if it was a new

tech that doesn't necessarily know everything, having a path to follow, you can see that being

beneficial for sure. Different. Yeah. Yeah. What are you most excited about going into 2026?

Now that the season's about to start. Made another year.

Solve more problems. I got a kid who's about to turn one. So that's my exciting, you know,

getting him to learn how to walk and say curse words. Well, maybe.

Awesome. Well, thanks for for being here today. Thanks for staying friends with brothers over 20

years. It's been a pleasure. Yeah, great to meet you both. Thanks for sharing your story.

Another important part of the modern irrigation business is how companies operate internally.

Customer communication, scheduling, service management, these parts of the business are also

evolving. That's something Alex from Morgan's irrigation has been thinking a lot about as he

helps build a modern irrigation service company. So Alex, why don't we start by just telling us,

you know, your name, your company, and a little bit about what you guys do. Okay, so my name is

Alex Morgan's, Morgan's irrigation out of Bayville, New Jersey. So we service Ocean and

Mom of County, which is pretty much the Jersey Shore. We're commercial, residential,

installation and service. Awesome. And what brought you to this event today?

So our sales revenue was put on a great show today. Reach out to us. Hey, we're going to do

two-wire class and two-wire is one of those things that really needs to be driven home as far as

installation and maintenance on it. And I brought all our senior techs here today,

so they can get a little feel of everything. A lot of them are very seasoned in it,

but anytime that we get a vacation for our techs and myself included with products and everything

like that, it's definitely a game changer for everybody. How long have you been doing this? So this

will be our six-year in business. So I started out by myself as normal doing installation and

service by myself. And then we've grown out to 12 employees, seven figures, all that good stuff.

Where did you get the crazy idea to get into irrigation? So I did it when I was in high school,

and I did it when I was in college. I went on to bigger construction type projects. And then I saw

a need in the industry as far as service wise, because I would talk to other people that were in

the industry. And they'd be like, our customers, we can't get to all our customers, we can't do this,

can't do that. And now we're stepping into that new generation of younger guys that are

using technology and stuff like that to really push the industry. Speaking, so you know,

Ramer's got a couple different technologies. You see our controller and two-wire and integrative

valve solenoids. What percent of your current customer base has a cloud-connected controller?

So the hard thing right now is getting everyone on board with that. So our big thing now is to really

push the water savings, because everyone gets their water bill and they're like, oh my god,

my sprinklers are costing me so much money. So now we have a sales pitch of sorts to them to be like,

hey, listen, we can save 20% on your water bill. We upgrade this. They're like, oh, my controller's

not old enough, but you're still going to save that money. And it's a long-term investment at this

point. Okay, so it sounds like you're trying to do what you can to get your clients to switch over

to a connected control. Yeah, absolutely. 100%. And now with Ramer with IQ stuff, now we can monitor it

with the flow sensors and everything like that. So we can be ahead of the game. A lot of customers

are not going to go out there four o'clock in the morning and see when the sprinklers are on.

So what's working well? I heard you say tying into saving water. Are there any other tips or tricks

that you've found that sit well with a customer to make that switch? So we'll just go with the

commercial side. It's more so that we can monitor your system. So you don't have to worry about

where the water is going and what we're using. And then in Jersey, we have a limitation of how much

water we can use, which is everywhere now. So the big thing is they don't want to get fined.

So if we're able to monitor it, it could be ahead of any type of service call. That's our big

selling point for that. So let's let's talk outside of technology that is controllers, valves,

and sprinklers. What other technology do you use in your business? Oh, man. We use a lot.

I'm always on social media and YouTube and stuff and looking in other industries.

So a lot of our stuff comes from the plumbing industry, the roofing industry. I have connections

in all those industries that we bounce ideas back and forth from. And I think the irrigation industry

is lacking in a lot of stuff as far as that. So we're able to incorporate text messages on the way

messages, just like simple things to keep people in the loop. We send out a monthly email blast

of not even just selling just information. And that just keeps people reengaged with everything.

That's fantastic. I feel like that type of hearing that from you is what other

contractors around the country should really hear about. And I'm sure for those that are listening

to this, some may do that. And others might not know how to do that. How did you get started

building that type of customer service in your business? Yeah. So we use the CRM call job

further, but very good. I mean, yeah. So they're, I started out with one one man show. And I was

like, I'm going to invest in my systems first before I keep growing. So if I was able to do that

with jobber in the beginning, they'd be with me from the beginning. And I've grown, grown with them.

So the real investment is right when you start, you know. But if you're transitioning from say,

you want, you're going to want to get with the technology. You might just be on a piece of paper

a lot of these guys out there, or they have nothing. Right. Right hand. Yeah. So a lot of guys

are scared. I mean, it runs your business, right? And it's, you got to get with the technology.

Now it is. It will help you so much tremendously. And so on that note, where do you see technology

going in say three years from now? How might your business be operating differently than it does

today? I mean, obviously the AI stuff now coming out. I mean, that does help. You have to, you have

to be able to channel that and use it because it's going to, it's going to take over currently

using it. Yeah. How do you tell us more about that? Okay. So with our AI, we use a lot of our

responses or our median responses say we like send out text messages or anything like that,

our meter responses are AI. So it might not be the exact what people are looking for, but we're

getting in contact with them right away. So we're trying to capture that lead right away and gather

the information and our AI can do that and then transfer it over to our CRM. And then our sales

people will pick it up and our office people will pick it up. So that's, that's, that's,

you've, has that had an effect on your close or conversion rate with customers? A hundred percent,

a hundred percent. You got, you pretty much have five minutes from the point of contact. When you

send something out and someone reaches out to you, the ability to, uh, convert that that quickly

is amazing. Five minutes. That's incredible. I couldn't probably name one contract. I think we'd

do it in five minutes unless they happen to be free and answer the phone at that moment. Correct.

Yeah. So now we're, we're taking that like even if we miss a phone call, like we strive to not

miss any phone calls, but even if we do, we'll send a text message right to that person. Hey,

we saw you called the book we help you with and that just automates it right away and people

will text you. A lot of people don't want to get on the phone anymore. If you want to be able to text,

they're going your website and fill form out and say, Hey, take care of this. Yeah. So, um, irrigation

can be seen as a boring dirty business who wants to dig in the dirt. What gets you up in the morning?

What motivates you? Innovation. Innovation. Yeah. Innovation. Where what does innovation mean to you?

Tell me tell us more. Yeah. So it's not so the innovation of the sprinkler product and the

sprinkler has been the same for forever. But it's more so where the business business are going now

as far as using technology and everything like that's the innovation that it's what makes me want

to go and do what I did because I just, I love the business side of it. That's really. Are there any

technologies that don't exist that you wish existed? Um, it's just now because I'm kind of working on my,

my own childhood, trying to come up with stuff that I can implement myself. A lot of integrations

are already taking place and it's constant. It's constantly. You're always looking for other

integrations that are in your CRM or anything like that. And it's, everyone's really on top of the

ball. I will say that. Let's, let's say that a client could be residential commercial. Yep.

Reaches out either to have someone on the phone or to say, I, and you follow up if there was

if you could solve the problem without going to the site. Are there any tools you wish existed?

They could help you do that without without deploying a truck all the way out there to say, oh,

yeah, it was a bad solenoid. Right. Like what would, what could be helpful on site to give you

so that's funny. You said that because one of my other connections that they were a pool company.

So they decided that we're going to open up like a 24 hour hotline of sorts. So you can try to

eliminate some of the silly service calls if sorts. Oh, my pump wasn't working, but then they

can go with using the remote technology with that. Now you can log in and look at what it is.

And either you can tell them, hey, reset the breaker, like something simple like that. Just to

eliminate simple service calls because if you're going out to someone's house to just reset a

controller or change the time and you can do that from your office, that service technique is going

to go make you more money on a more complex. Would you, let's say you did that. Do you currently

charge your customers for that service? Oh, so this year we're going to we're rolling out

memberships. So whoever is signed up with the membership will get that option. So it's just like

a $99 fee. There's other perks that are involved with it. But I think the memberships is really going

to take off with that. Yeah, that's a great idea because nothing should be free free. They,

you guys have to recover it some way. Right. And it's also value added service to the customer. So

if they know they're on this plan, just a phone call away, you can make an adjustment. Yeah,

it's a great idea. And they're not going to they're not going to look for anybody else.

You know, they're on that membership. Yeah, they're on that membership. You're going to cost

the communication with them. You're giving them, you're giving them exclusive benefits and deals

that they that they can have. Yeah. So you've been in business six years. Yeah. What advice might

you have for someone starting their business today that you wish you knew when you started?

Oh, man, that's a loaded question. Like I said before, I would every small business

someone when they start out, it's just like it's fly by I see your pants. But to get the systems

in place early before you start growing, that's the biggest thing. Like even your CRM, your

answer service, like you got to hire like your admin people first, because your first person

should really hire is like a good admin, just to answer the phone. So you can be out doing the

stuff you need to do because you're the you know, you know, you're the starter. Yes, you're the guy

that can do the things. Yes, you don't want to be stuck in the office and now it's like we're

getting back to technology. Now you got virtual assistance. You got other options before it was

you had to hire somebody to sit in their office and wait for the phone ring. And that phone might

not be ringing as much. So if you can tie into technology, what if you can unlock something to

help grow your business? What would that be? Everyone's going to say labor. I mean, yeah,

I mean, you got any contractor. It's always labor and it's skill labor. But for you specifically,

what type of labor, what type of person would you want to hire that's hard to hire? So we, we,

like when we first started, we were hiring on experience. Like I love having experienced guys

around me. You know, we're always learning from each other and everything like that. But now we're

now we switched our higher process to more just we based our higher on the attitude.

So we can train people now with because I have the experience guys so they can train those guys

and we've been basically switched up our whole hiring process to get guys in from the labor

position and build them up each year to get to another position. Are there any certain questions

that you ask that you can vet the attitude? How do you vet the attitude? The attitude is just

from initial contact and how they come into the office and they're just they're like how they

carry themselves and just how they answer questions like I know when you come into an interview,

you're nervous, everything like that. So I understand that but it's more so that you have an

eagerness to learn like we lay out the steps of what you're getting into. It's not an easy job,

you know, but we give you steps and what we expect on each step to get to go to a different role.

So people come in with the road map and they're not just like well I don't know what I'm going to

do next, you know, so they have a road map and I think that's huge. Yeah. When you, let's see,

how do I ask this question, when you first got into business, we started your business,

were you using Rainbow products and if yes and if no, how did you decide that you wanted to use

Rainbow products? Yeah, so I always use Rainbow, I just my name is like means a lot to me and

Rainbow is the same way like they're back their products, longevity of their products, their

words, the salespeople, everybody has, they're all in it for the right reasons, you know, so that

was easy for us to stay what we were I was the Rainbow from the beginning. So yeah. Final question,

what are you most excited about in 2026? Growth. Growth. I love growth. It's stressful,

but the growth of not just our business, the industry and the other other companies

that are popping up here and there and it's like and the future for younger people is huge

because there's a lot of people in the older generations out getting out of trades and it's

the opportunities are there. Okay. Excellent. Well, thank you for sharing your story and technology.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, great to meet you. Have a nice trip. Not every conversation at the

summit was with irrigation technicians. I also had the chance to talk with Dan Gell and Denise

from Landscape Maintenance Services, one of the larger landscape companies in New Jersey with more

than a thousand employees. What made this conversation interesting is that they're part of the next

generation of leadership helping bring new technology, new systems and even AI into a company

that's been operating successfully for decades kind of the old fashion way. It's a great look at how

technology adoption often happens inside real businesses, slowly, thoughtfully and sometimes

with a little tug of war between the old way and the new way. Alright, so let's just start with

who you are, the name of your company, where you guys are located. Dan Gell from Landscape Maintenance

Services. Our headquarters is in Hillsboro, New Jersey, but we service all of New Jersey and

Eastern Pennsylvania. Okay, and do you provide services outside of irrigation? Like what are all

your services that you provide? Landscape construction maintenance and irrigation. And it's not

removable. Okay, and what brought you to the rainbow event today? Our irrigation. We want to learn

as much as we can about irrigation. We typically work in in the office and we're on the road, but we

don't get to learn like actually how the systems work. So we're here trying to learn a little more

about the actual mechanisms. Okay, has there any, have you heard anything so far today that has

made you think that is sparked your interest? Everything for me is new. I'm just with LMS for four

years. So, and I came from retail. So everything that I learn at these events is all new to me

and good to learn. Okay, so maybe just tell us a little bit about LMS, like size of the company,

people, trucks, just to kind of frame up what LMS is all about. Sure. Our company is Landscape

Maintenance Services. As Danielle said, we're in Hillsboro, New Jersey. Our headquarters,

but we're located. We have several different satellite offices all through New Jersey and Eastern

Pennsylvania. We are a full service landscape construction maintenance, snow removal, irrigation

company. We are in business for 48 years. Yeah, over 1,000 employees. We service over 300

homeowners associations who work with dozens of home builders. So we do all the installation from

like the, you know, the dirt up. And then also at that point, we transfer the construction over

to our maintenance and our irrigation departments. And then so we kind of try to stay on these properties

as long as we can to fulfill the life and longevity of the landscaping that we're. That's a

fan. That's a large company. I really had no idea. Yeah, we're one of the large. We're not

national, but we're one of the largest in New Jersey. Okay. So now I've got a bunch of questions.

I won't tricky with having irrigation technical questions, but with a company the size of years,

technology has can be through all aspects of a company. So are there some things that are like

back of office in office related technology, software services that you've seen recently that

have helped your business? So that's the funny thing about our company is we're a huge company

that we're run as like a very small company that started 45 years ago. So our technology,

we have we have a bunch of younger people and Danielle and myself coming into the business that

we're trying to make the changes and we're slowly making changes to bring the software into like,

you know, this century, but we we have some technology like AIs when huge with

I know me inside the office are like making writing emails or proposals or whatever, but

that's where we struggle is like our software systems and running the businesses. So we don't

have time time clocks. We don't have anything like that. We just it's basically a we have

and paper. Yeah, we have managers who look over and approve everything and so

that's that's the that's the difficult part of our business, but that being said, we're very

successful with the way it has run for 40 years. So you know, the little guys who are in charge,

the owners, they just feel like if it's not broke, why fix it? So we have it's it's like

tug-a-war right now in that situation where we're trying to explain to them. We're going to make

it a lot easier. We're going to save money. We're going to there's all these technologies out

that they're going to help and they're you know in their mind, they're like, okay, we'll teach us,

but also like we can't jump into it all at one time. So slowly we're getting there, but

so maybe each of you could share how you mentioned using AI, even if it's just a little,

how do you use AI today? And what AI do you use?

Chat GPT. We actually just took an AI course about a month ago and learned so much. So I think

we are still in like the beginning stages of learning how far we can take it. Right now I kind of

feel like it's very basic, like quick emails, you know, more like wording assistance, but hope to

use it for organization, you know, more efficient processes. And you're using it once a day,

once an hour, once a week. What's the frequency of using that tool? I would say several times a

week. Okay. Maybe not once a day, but it depends on what what we're working on. Yeah, we we after

taking the class, we were like, wow, I didn't realize that it could do all these things for us.

So we have like this checklist of things we'd like to do with it, but trying to learn like the

basics right now for our personal or what we do within the job so that we can expand helping

into the business. We do have, we want to set up another course with just the three of, we were

in like a class at a site one university. It was a seminar, but for me personally, like I set up

my, you know, my budget to pay my bills, like I was just been playing around with it. And I'm like,

I can't believe it does all this stuff. Or I'll write it. I'll just tell it, you know,

send, write me an email that is professional and we're hitting these things on it. And

I was just blown away. I love that kind of like I like it's an analogy of trying to use it for

myself, like playing in the sandbox and experimenting. That sounds exactly what you do. Let's,

let me just try this. Let's see what happens. And now like I have like these thoughts of my head,

like it's just about time, but I want to make templates. I want to create our, I want to create

all the things like these templates for our workers. I don't have to do it, but it's just time.

Like, when do we have the time to do it? But it's definitely making it easier because these are all

things that I've been wanting to do for years. So now I have this software system that I can just

do it for me and it'll be so much quicker. It's just, yeah, I'm excited to get to it. So a couple

last questions. What, where do you see technology in your business in LMS? Let's say in the next

three years. I hope farther than it is now. I hope that we have a better accounting software,

operations field software. I mean, we really are pen and paper Excel spreadsheets.

So we have a long way to go. So in three years, I hope that we at least have the basics covered.

Yeah, we, Daniel and I put so much time into like bringing the software system that we're learning

in front of the owners and the decision makers and finally feels like we have the audience.

So we're making changes. So yeah, like Daniel said, hopefully with the next three years,

we will have the foundation of the software for the foundation of the company that's going to

start running it and then that's going to be the aha moment where they're like, okay, we believe

in this. We trust in this a lot. Yeah, yeah. Awesome. Okay, last question. What are you most excited

about for 2026? Most say about what? What are you most excited about this year? Well, in our,

I'm in the construction side of our company and we have a lot of really big projects coming.

So I mean, I'm just ready to hit the ground running, ready for snow to be gone,

winter to be over and the season to just start. Yeah, I think I'm in the same position. We had a

really long snow season. So just like I was driving on Sunday and the sun was out. The sky was blue

and I just felt like this, this just lift up like, okay, it's coming. But honestly, like I wake up

every day. I love my job. I love the people I work with. I don't really, I don't really look

forward to something new all the time. I just like, I'm very happy in like what I'm doing. So

I think for me to say what I look forward to is just new relationships, new learning new things,

like software or irrigation or paper, whatever, whatever it is. But yeah, I'm excited for that.

Very good. Well, thank you both for sharing your story, talking about alnes and great to meet you.

And I wish you the best this year. Thank you so much. Another great part of events like this

is meeting contractors who are still early in their irrigation journey. Joe and Miguel from

MA Landscape came to the summit looking to learn more about irrigation technology and how they can

grow their business. They've been in the industry for several years and are beginning to explore

new controllers, new systems and new tools that can help them expand what they currently offer

their customers. Sometimes the most interesting perspective comes from contractors who are still

building their path in the industry. All right, welcome to the Rainbow Contractor summit. Can you tell

me your name and the name of your business? Joe Munoz from MA Landscape. Yeah, Miguel,

MA Landscaping. And where's MA Landscaping out of? It is from Western New York. Western New York.

What town? Western New York. Yes, it's a town. Oh, Western New York and a town in New Jersey.

Okay, great. And how long have you guys been doing irrigation work? I think for like a couple of

years now, like I would say more than ten years, so. Okay, great. And what brought you to this event

today? Just a little more about sprinklers about, you know, irrigations and it's over all that.

Okay. Are you guys using technology in your business today?

Try to learn really more today about the new technology because they changed a lot of

a lot of new technologies, so we try to see if Western New technology in try to draw a little bit

more on that. All right, let's switch. What's the most difficult part about doing irrigation work?

Trying to like figure out like like most of the what's it called like the piping and stuff,

like try to go try to figure out a word from 40 if it goes to point B. If not then I guess we

have to put like, you know, the pipes under the house. Oh, yeah, how to route the piping and everything.

And how many customers do you guys have? Well, customers, I think we have like a 65 or something like that.

All right, nice. And besides irrigation, you guys do landscaping too?

Are you sure? We do a whole other thing about the cost-scape man and

maintenance. Yeah, we do a lot of work. Awesome. And are you currently using rainbird products?

So this is like our first time using rainbird. Okay, very good. Well, I know at this event there's

going to be some learning about the controllers and the integrated valve and some of their

battery-operated controllers. Do you listen to podcasts?

Ooh, podcasts? No, not a lot right now. I feel like as you get like interested in the

fun. Awesome. Well, now now you can listen to the sprinkler nerd show because now I'll find a sound

bite and then have you on the show so you can drive down the road and listen to the sprinkler nerd

show. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Well, thank you for telling me about your business and happy that you

guys are here and hope that you learned something today. Listening to these conversations, one thing

becomes clear. Today's irrigation contractor is wearing many hats, technician, water manager,

business operator, customer service manager, and increasingly technology manager.

Did you think that was going to be a hat you'd wear, technology manager?

In the final episode of this series, we'll shift our perspective again and talk with the people

designing tools every contractor relies on today, the product teams at Rainbird.