3/30/2015
Fulfilling a Veteran’s Dream
Anne-Marie Hardie
Running a growing operation may not be the first career that comes to mind for a veteran, but for Jamie Critelli, owner of Floral Beauty Greenhouses in Elmira, New York, it’s a natural fit, providing another opportunity to serve his country.
Jamie’s passion for growing began early, in 1967, when his father and grandfather operated a greenhouse business. The business changed hands and Jamie’s uncle took it over. Passionate about the business, Jamie chose to work with his uncle and pursue a horticulture degree at Cornell University.
With a military scholarship in hand, he was uncertain on how his love for horticulture would come into play.
Pictured: Jamie Critelli, owner of Floral Beauty Greenhouses, sits in the middle of 5,000 Christmas Day Red Poinsettias with his daughter Elisa, now age 4.
“I knew I needed to spend time in the military, but I always felt there was this passion for growing that I hadn’t tapped yet and I never really knew how it would manifest,” said Jamie.
The manifestation wouldn’t occur until several years later. The year was 2010 and Jamie was living in Switzerland with his wife when his father passed away and his ailing mother needed his support back home in New York. At the same time, there was a greenhouse operation in Elmira that had become available. The previous owner was overextended, and with the economic downturn, decided to sell the satellite locations and the Elmira location was one of these.
It was a dream come true. Not only would this bring Jamie closer to home, but it also would reconnect him to his roots in the greenhouse industry. With the help of Farm Credit, he was able to purchase this business and watch his passion come to fruition.
“There is no substitute for experience, and if you’ve never had a business …” said Jamie. “I had been afraid at times in the military, but never financially afraid, and for the first time in my life I’m like, ‘Wow, I am on the hook for so much debt.’ You just didn’t know whether you would be successful or not.”
Venturing into a growing operation involves taking on a lot of risks, something Jamie is comfortable with as long as they’re calculated ones. A loan from Farm Credit was able to relieve some of the financial stress. To help diminish the risk with the business decisions, Jamie formed a board of advisers, including a lawyer, banker, retired colonel from the Army and a retired grower. These key individuals helped provide the guidance Floral Beauty Greenhouses needed to evolve into a successful operation.
“I still make the decisions, but (the board of advisers) provided over 100 years worth of experience that I could draw,” said Jamie. “You’re listening to advice and they tell you the pros and cons.”
A growing operation is similar to a living organism, said Jamie—to thrive you can’t look at one piece or system on its own. Each part, from marketing to plant care, needs to work together to keep the business alive. This isn’t an inexpensive business to get into, stressed Jamie, but growers need to focus on what he calls the multiplier effect.
“What are all the tiny little pieces that I put together to make the whole organization worth more than the sum of the individual parts?” asked Jamie.
He attributed his success to both hard work and committing to learning about the entire process from experts in the field.
“Through the tutelage of a previous grower, I’d been able to learn how to really grow the plants well,” said Jamie. “I tried to focus on the logistics and distribution of the plants, the marketing of the plants, the retail sales period of the plants and inventory control.”
In this fairly fickle economy, Jamie strives to develop a business that responds to customers’ needs. Constantly benchmarking, he looks at today and projects where he wants to be tomorrow. Recently, Jamie solicited a team of engineers to help him further understand the cost invested with labor and energy. A team from Virginia Tech University began in September 2014 with a tour and some benchmarking. On their second trip, the engineers conducted a time study on the poinsettia shipment. At this time, they observed all aspects, from the length of time to process an order to getting it out the door.
“The goal is to figure out a way to make ourselves more competitive year after year,” said Jamie.
Transparency is key. A chart on the wall monitors both daily and weekly growth, allowing Jamie and his team to review the crop’s progress. He believes that growers need to track their progress to help determine what resources may be required from external labor to marketing.
“Every grower needs to re-evaluate where they are and where they want to be five years from now,” said Jamie. “You can still be a niche grower, but you have to look at where you are, you have to benchmark your progress and I would say the one other thing that growers need to do is really take a look at how they can diversify.”
Since 2011, Floral Beauty Greenhouses has expanded from two to 12 greenhouses and from 13,000 to 33,000 sq. ft. Jamie’s customer base also has changed dramatically, from garden centers and florists to fundraising groups and restaurants. Hydroponic vegetables have become a critical part of the growing operation, appealing to the demand for local produce.
One of Jamie’s dreams in discussion with the Farmers Veteran coalition is to provide veterans with another mission in life, and ultimately, careers in the growing industry. Currently, he has one veteran employed with him full-time and another who assists in the spring and fall.
Jamie is concerned for the future of the industry, with growers retiring and a lack of younger entrepreneurs filling the void. Growing, states Jamie, provides veterans with another opportunity to serve their country, filling a much-needed gap.
“They’ve served this country once. I’d like to put them back to work feeding America or making America beautiful with flowers,” said Jamie.
Jamie’s Five Tips from the Trenches:
1 | Business is a puzzle: Don’t focus on just one piece, but all of them to be successful.
2 | Make smaller bets and track your progress.
3 | Don’t do it alone: Employ a board of advisors.
4 | Harness people’s minds, not just their hands.
5 | Look at two business horizons: Day to day and long term. GT
Anne-Marie Hardie is a freelance writer/speaker from Barrie, Ontario, and part of the third generation of the family-owned garden center/wholesale business Bradford Greenhouses in Barrie/Bradford, Ontario.