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At home on his turf

Michael White started by knocking on doors and offering to cut grass in New Tampa. Now he's the owner of a thriving horticulture business.

By EMILY NIPPS
Published June 24, 2005

NEW TAMPA - The first time Michael White laid his eyes on this place called "New Tampa," it was everything he heard it would be.

It was 30 houses.

More importantly, it was 30 houses with beautifully laid sod that could use some good cutting. They were the first of thousands of Tampa Palms homes that began cropping up in the late 1980s, when New Tampa was still in its pioneer stages.

At the time, White was hanging wallpaper to make ends meet after being laid off from factory work. One day, a painter working at one of his wallpapering jobs talked excitedly about this New Tampa place. White went to check it out.

And it was his. All his.

White got his mother to help him buy a lawn mower and other equipment, and he knocked on the first of the 30 doors. Then a second. Then a third. Soon, White had enough clients to make some fairly decent income.

He still knocks on doors now and then, but he very rarely has to. White's Four Seasons Lawn Care, which now specializes in horticultural treatment rather than mowing, is employed by more than 700 clients. Business continues to boom as White estimates he brings in between $250,000 to $300,000 a year. He has three other guys who work for him.

White claims to be the very first lawn guy in New Tampa (excluding Pebble Creek and some of the older county-line communities). That's quite a distinction in a place known for its lush, green grass and perfectly trimmed hedges, each yard looking as pretty as the next.

The 48-year-old remembers the old days, when there was practically no traffic and the place was still ruled by real estate developer Ken Good (White did his lawn, too). He marvelled at the way these New Tampa people lived, the jobs they worked, the cars they drove. He poked his head in all the model homes, dreaming of owning one himself.

"I thought these people were millionaires," he said. "I literally thought they were all millionaires. That is, until I started getting some bounced checks."

Millionaires they may not all be, but New Tampa homeowners have given White the kind of wealth he never found as a kid picking oranges, as a teenager working at Chik-fil-A or as an adult making boxes in a factory.

White was raised among seven siblings in Jackson Heights, where his mother was the sole caretaker after his father died of a brain hemorrhage. White graduated from King High School and chose to work rather than attend college.

He enjoyed manual labor, even though it wreaked havoc on his body. His career as a UPS delivery guy stopped almost as soon as it started after he backed into a woman's home and was fired on the spot.

He experienced the excitement of being a union worker when he and his fellow employees went on strike against their factory. Then the factory packed up and moved its operations to Kentucky.

"Even when I was doing factory work, I knew I wasn't meant to do factory work," White said. "I knew I had that entrepreneurial spirit."

He used his layoff as an opportunity to seek out a new life, a new challenge, a new frontier.

He found all of that in New Tampa.

Suddenly, he was shaking hands with millionaires (real ones) and making friends with movers and shakers. He looked to his clients as partners, in a way, and always asked the same question upon meeting anyone new: "What do you do?"

White found that his clients had better things to offer than money.

Like a new wardrobe. One client was a tailor from Atlanta, who helped keep White stocked in fine clothes and Bruno Magli shoes. "People at church thought I was some high-powered lawyer," White said.

And a new place to play. One client was the head tennis director at Hunter's Green, where White soon had his own personalized cherry wood locker, a $175 tennis racket and lessons, to boot. "I remember I had these tennis shorts that cost $40," he said. "I was afraid to wear them."

White's wife has also enjoyed some of the perks of her husband's New Tampa connection. When White married his Eurena 12 years ago, the two got to honeymoon at the fancy Grenelefe Resort, courtesy of one of White's clients. Later, when Eurena's car was on its last gasp, White tapped into a client who ran a car dealership. Eurena became the proud owner of a Lexus GS 300.

White gets top-notch personal training courtesy of former Mr. Universe Ron Coleman, a client. White also learned everything he knows about marketing his business from one of his clients, a marketing consultant, and his accountant is also a client.

One client taught White all about the stock market, which White enthusiastically dove into. He watched his portfolio grow, but then got carried away by dabbling in risky day trading. He lost over $100,000 when the high-tech market collapsed.

"My whole life savings was gone," said White, who has since recovered financially. "I guess I'm not that smart when it comes to stuff like that."

White does, however, know his stuff when it comes to grass and plants. About three years ago, when New Tampa seemed to reach its saturation point with lawn guys, White decided to get out of mowing and specialize in horticulture.

It required hours and hours of studying, a rigorous test and at least two years of apprentice work. He can now identify the source of any brown spot, bald patch or dead plant simply by looking at it. He can tell you anything you need to know about cinch bugs, caterpillars and fire ants.

He takes pride in all of his lawns, so much that some of his lawn owners feel sheepish when they don't keep up on their end of the care.

At one recent stop in Arbor Greene, White brought one of his clients outside to show him a landscaping no-no: He lifted a filled garbage bag sitting on the grass, revealing a flat yellow patch.

At another stop, White shook his head as he pulled up to one of his treated lawns, which the owner clearly had not mowed since his last visit. "I need to tell him to get his lawn mowed," he said, then got out of his pickup and knocked on the guy's door.

Leonard Contardo, the New Tampa Community Council president and a client of White's, didn't realize what a big deal yards were when he moved to Hunter's Green from Atlanta two years ago.

"In a planned community, the upkeep isn't an option," he said. "You can't have weeds or brown patches because you'll get cited and then you'll get fined."

Contardo got a couple of citations when he moved into his home and "inherited a bad lawn," so he hired Four Seasons Lawn Care.

"He knows his trade, he has his education and he really seems to care," he said. "If I don't keep it up, it's almost like I'm letting him down."

White doesn't want to be a lawn guy forever. He hopes eventually to pursue his dream job, motivational speaking, and he has already done some speaking at churches and business club.

He always keeps a tape of one of his favorite motivational speakers in his truck's tape deck, and he has his favorite motivational books and authors. He likes to use the term "failing forward" and thinks he knows a thing or two about the subject.

He is, by anyone's account, a success story. But he realizes he didn't do it alone.

Even White's Seffner home, which he shares with his wife and 18-year-old son Michael and 4-year-old Myles, is 4,000 square feet of borrowed ideas. Located in Hickory Hill, which White and Eurena chose for its coziness and proximity to both of their parents, it's quite a step up from the family's one-bedroom, one-bath apartment they lived in four years ago.

White and Eurena visited several New Tampa model homes to get ideas for their fireplace, their tile and Pergo floors, their archway doors and their garden tub. The four-bedroom, four-bath home was built with the help of various contractors, whom White met through his New Tampa contacts.

Then, of course, there's the lawn. Green, manicured and gorgeous.

White hires someone else to take care of it.

- Emily Nipps can be reached at 813 269-5313 or nipps@sptimes.com

[Last modified June 23, 2005, 08:09:06]