Tenbarge Seed Presentation - Trends in the Landscape Industry

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Tom Barrett is owner of Green Water Infrastructure. He has over thirty years of successful landscape industry experience and is known as an accomplished corporate growth and change agent.\n\nMr. Barrett has held various leadership positions at such industry leaders as Rain Bird, Kenney Machinery, Ewing, Netafim, and MacAllister Machinery. He has worked with such projects as Animal Kingdom at Walt Disney World in Florida. He has won numerous awards in Quality and Process Improvement, and is a frequent contributor of articles for numerous publications.\n\nMr. Barrett holds a Bachelor of Science in Agronomy and Plant Genetics from the University of Arizona. He furthered his studies in architecture at Syracuse Univ. He holds multiple certifications in irrigation and water conservation. Tom is a member of the Indiana Nursery and Landscape Association, as well as the International Irrigation Association, in which he chairs the Communications Committee. He is an approved instructor for the Irrigation Association.\n\nTom Barrett has been sharing his expertise and his ideas in energetic and dynamic presentations for over twenty years. He is a master trainer. His presentations empower people to become masters of change, rather than victims of circumstance by developing tools for transformative thinking. \n\nCurrently, Tom delivers over thirty presentations each year to organizations around the country. He is well-suited to talk to us today about Rain Gardens & Bioswales. Please join me in welcoming, TOM BARRETT!\n

As of August 21, 2009 eighty-one banks have closed this year. Almost half of them are in July. This is 280% more than closed in the previous seven years combined.\n

actual unemployment is over 14 million.\n

Women posted a net increase of 1.7 million jobs paying above the median salary, while men gained a net increase of 220,000 of such positions, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics report for the years 2000-20005.\n-Wall Street Journal. , Tuesday, February 20, 2007 Page A8\n\n1,700,000WOMEN89%\n +220,000MEN11%\n1,920,000NEW JOBS ABOVE THE MEDIAN SALARY 2000 - 2005\nWomen increased new highly paying jobs at a rate of 8.5 times faster than men.\n

Finally&#x2026;\n

Green Infrastructure, Green Highways, and Green Streets will be the foundation for the rebuilding and expansion of our nations infrastructure and a key to our economic growth in the 21st Century. Green is the development of innovative approaches and strategies on how to integrate integrate grey and green infrastructure in order to protect water resources and promote sustainable design and community development. We have an opportunity to use a comprehensive approach that takes advantage of our experience on pilot projects, research, the development of standards and specifications, manuals of practice, training, and environmental management systems in order to integrate and institutionalize green approaches. \n

At the largest scale, the preservation and restoration of natural landscape features (such as forests, floodplains and wetlands) are critical components of green stormwater infrastructure. By protecting these ecologically sensitive areas, communities can improve water quality while providing wildlife habitat and opportunities for outdoor recreation.\nOn a smaller scale, green infrastructure practices include rain gardens, porous pavements, green roofs, infiltration planters, trees and tree boxes, and rainwater harvesting for non-potable uses such as toilet flushing and landscape irrigation.\n\nPicture the grime of city streets -- oil, grease and soot from cars and trucks; pet waste; trash and litter; sediment and debris from construction sites; and a mix of toxic chemicals. Now picture the same streets after a rainstorm. They look cleaner, right? Sure, but the debris and contaminants haven't just disappeared -- they've been swept through street drains and underground pipes then washed directly into the nearby river, lake or bay.\nWherever humans have paved or built over the natural world, dirty rainwater tends to run straight into our waterways, contaminating the water, destroying habitat and damaging property. Known as urban runoff, this type of pollution can have serious consequences, from fouling drinking water to closing beaches and poisoning shellfish beds. Indeed, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency now considers urban runoff and pollution from other diffuse sources the greatest contaminant threat to our nation's waters. The good news is that there are a number of proven solutions that towns and cities can use to reduce runoff pollution.\nOne new and exciting approach has emerged in recent years. Called "low-impact development," it uses both simple common sense and technology -- strategically placed beds of native plants, rain barrels, "green roofs," porous surfaces for parking lots and roads, and other tools -- to help rainfall evaporate back into the atmosphere or soak into the ground, rather than polluting the nearest water body. In effect, low-impact development mimics nature's own filtering systems. The result is less water pollution from dirty runoff, less flooding, replenished groundwater supplies -- and often, more natural-looking, aesthetically pleasing cityscapes.\n

To begin with, it&#x2019;s worth noting that all the insanity around us notwithstanding there will be a moment when this age will start to make sense: That brave new world will look very different than it does now...\nJoshua Cooper Ramo, author of The Age of the Unthinkable\n

Sometimes you have to do whatever it takes\n&#xA0;\nDuring the height of the recession in 2009 I was driving home from work on a Friday afternoon and was surprised to see a man standing at a busy intersection with a sign that read I need a job, with his phone number below.&#xA0; In the midst of the worst recession in years it wasn&#x2019;t surprising that someone was standing at a corner with a sign looking for work.. What was uncommon was how he looked.&#xA0; He appeared to be in his fifties and was dressed in a suit, tie and all. It was July and it was hot and his face was beat red. It was apparent that he had been standing there all day.&#xA0; On Monday morning driving to work he was there once again. This time I decided to stop and talk with him. I assumed he must have been desperate for a job. He had probably been out of work for 6 months to a year and was on the verge of losing his house, his family, and perhaps was losing his mind.&#xA0; Why else would he be here.&#xA0; I had connections and thought perhaps I could help him out.\n&#xA0;\nWhat I learned from talking to him surprised me. He was out of work, but he had only been out of work for 2 weeks!&#xA0; He told me that he couldn&#x2019;t sit home and stare at a computer all day long looking for a job and he could think of no better way to get himself out there than this. &#x201C;Times were tough, he said, you&#x2019;ve got to do whatever it takes.&#x201D;&#xA0; He went on to say that he was an accountant and lost his job because his company had downsized.&#xA0; He wanted to stay in accounting but was willing to do whatever it took to keep working.&#xA0; He also said that in the two days he was out there he received over 100 phone calls!&#xA0; He handed me his resume and I promised him I would see if I could help him out. It was obvious to me though that he didn&#x2019;t need much help and in reality he had done more for me than I had done for him.&#xA0; I saw him at the corner one more day and that was it. I don&#x2019;t know for sure but I bet he wasn&#x2019;t out of work for too long.\n&#xA0;\nI couldn&#x2019;t stop thinking about the situation. Was I putting forth that type of effort&#xA0; in my business? Of course not.&#xA0; Training and Consulting budgets had been slashed by virtually every company and my business was hurting bad.&#xA0; I was putting forth more effort to find clients but by no means had I done something as bold as this guy.&#xA0;&#xA0; I knew I could do more. I knew I wasn&#x2019;t doing whatever it takes.\n&#xA0;\nIt wasn&#x2019;t long after that experience that I saw a sign at our church for a men&#x2019;s group that was starting up. The name of the group? &#x201C;Whatever it takes.&#x201D;&#xA0;&#xA0; You bet I signed up for that group.\n

I don&#x2019;t know why this keeps popping up.\n

Tom Barrett is an accomplished corporate growth and change agent with over thirty years of landscape industry experience. Tom&#x2019;s leadership experience, holding executive level positions, drives corporate revenue growth through change and innovation for business start-ups, corporate expansions, and divisional turnarounds. Tom Barrett has been delivering energetic, dynamic presentations and training for over twenty years. These presentations empower people to become masters of change rather than victims of circumstance by developing tools for transformative thinking. Currently, Tom Barrett delivers over thirty presentations and trainings each year to organizations and associations around the country. \n