Alumni Small Businesses

Inspired by community-based events such as Small Business Saturday, the Alumni & Development Office came up with a plan to catalog and promote small businesses owned by Frederick Gunn School alumni. Businesses are listed at gogunn.org and members of the FGS community are encouraged to support them. In this issue of the Bulletin, we are pleased to introduce two alumni who are growing in the world of small business. If you are interested in having your small business featured, please contact Jess Baker, Director of Engagement & Operations, at bakerj@frederickgunn.org.

During the global pandemic, Garden State Nursery, a wholesale grower of premium trees and shrubs, did not shut down for a single day. Instead, the company, based in Chesterfield, New Jersey, experienced a 20-percent increase in growth. Sales have tripled since 2016, when Andrew De Paulis ’12 became Business Operations Manager after graduating from Syracuse University, and his goal is to triple the company’s growth again.

Phil De Paulis P’12 came up with the idea to start a tree nursery after retiring in 2000 from the construction industry. “He grew up on a farm and he wanted to spend the rest of his life on a farm,” Andrew De Paulis said. So the family moved from Rumson to Chesterfield in 2010 and has been there ever since.

Garden State Nursery specializes in shade, ornamental, flowering and evergreen trees and shrubs that grow on the nursery’s more than 700 acres. De Paulis, who earned a bachelor’s degree in

communications and a double minor in marketing and management at Syracuse (he was recruited to the school’s Division I Men’s Rowing Team), oversees the nursery’s operations, from trucking and client meetings to accounting and marketing. He works with the company’s production manager to oversee production of all plant material. “We have over 350 varieties in We’re pretty much on every Ivy production, including Japanese maples, League campus in the country. dogwoods, viburnum, Green Giants, and Our trees are in Manhattan, in many more unique species,” he said. “We most of the notable parks, and plant between 10,000 and 15,000 trees per year. Our trees are graded by hardiness on estates all over the country, zones, so we grow specifically to serve the especially on Long Island, and Northeast Region” throughout New England’s The staff includes 10 full-time Cape and islands.” employees as well as seasonal employees who help out during the busy season. – Andrew De Paulis ’12 “From the third week of February through June 1, we work seven days a week around the clock. On an ordinary day, I typically get to work around 6:15 a.m. and probably stay to a minimum of 7 p.m. I’m tagging, I’m overseeing production, I’m working digging equipment and loading trucks myself if need be.

Andrew De Paulis ’12 is the Business Operations Manager for Garden State Nursery, a wholesale grower of premium trees and shrubs, in Chesterfield, New Jersey. At left and above, a view of trees at the nursery.

It’s just an unbelievably time-consuming process. I’m going tree to tree, making sure they meet our standards and our customers’ standards as well,” said De Paulis, explaining that color-coded ribbons are used to identify trees as they are selected or “tagged” by customers. Staff use one of four different tree spades, which are mounted on track machines, as well as wheel loaders, to dig out and deliver the trees, and the largest trees are still dug by hand.

Among the many, high-quality trees the nursery grows, they specialize in evergreens, oaks, and flowering dogwoods. The evergreen trees planted behind the Thomas S. Perakos Arts and Community Center on The Frederick Gunn School campus also came from Garden State Nursery.

“We’re pretty much on every Ivy League campus in the country. Our trees are in Manhattan, in most of the notable parks, and on estates all over the country, especially on Long Island, and throughout New England’s Cape and islands. We ship as far as Michigan and Louisiana,” De Paulis said.

It came as a bit of a surprise that one of the primary marketing tools for the industry is Instagram. “All the landscape architects who are designing jobs are on Instagram. We weren’t marketing that way at all, but since we started, we have picked up countless clients that way,” De Paulis said. During the global pandemic, the company thrived in the digital realm. “There was a lot of FaceTiming and Zooming to show people trees. There were not a lot of nursery visits. We gave customers the opportunity to rely on us to pick out plant material, and we’re reaping the rewards from that now as our customers see we are what our mission statement says we are: ‘Quality Grown Trees.’ Whether you come to the nursery or not to select the trees, you’re going to get what you’re looking for.”

His future plans for the business? “I’ve been here five years and I’ve exactly tripled the size of our business sales-wise. The goal is to triple it again. Obviously, it’s not going to happen again on that same timeline. It’s an ambitious goal, but we see ourselves doing that, hopefully in the next 10 years.”

The work is labor-intensive and most of the company’s competitors don’t have a next generation to pass the business on to, or there is simply no interest. “It’s a rocky, tough road to start out for those who are willing to do it. I’m one of six children and I’m the only one who decided to get involved,” said De Paulis, who views his competitor’s lack of succession planning as an opportunity for future growth. “We are actively purchasing land to expand and constantly seeking more market share.”

His family-run business is also family-oriented. “We’re less than 50 people, which I believe constitutes a small business. Every single Monday, I’m there with coffee and doughnuts greeting our employees and discussing our short weekends. When we work Saturday and Sunday, I bring our team lunch. We go to local breweries and soccer games as well. It keeps everyone down-to-earth and on the same page.”The nursery’s largest trees are dug by hand in preparation for delivery.

Andrew De Paulis ’12 with one of the 350 varieties of trees grown by his family’s small business

In August, Anthropologie added a new item to its Curated by Anthropologie line, the Magda Made Cipriano Basket. Handwoven by a group of artisans in Guapi, Cauca, a small town along Colombia’s Pacific Coast, the baskets are as beautiful as they are functional. Even more intriguing is how they made their way from the hands of a small group of artisans in an indigenous community to the carefully curated website of a global consumer brand.

Malachi Garff ’05 founded Magda Made in 2018 with her friend and business partner, Shannon Hill, with the goal of celebrating the work of undiscovered artisans, and having a socio-economic impact on their communities. They built the business from the ground up, and despite the challenge of the global pandemic, their network has expanded. It now includes 22 artisan communities whose handmade products are sold directly from the Magda Made website, magdamade.co, and in small shops from California and New Orleans to Italy and Japan. “Our network has grown significantly and it’s very exciting,” Garff said by phone from her home in Burlington, Vermont, this summer.

Garff graduated from Tulane with a bachelor’s degree in international development and anthropology, and earned her master’s in international affairs, with a focus on governance and rights, from The New School in New York. She met Hill in New

Malachi Garff ’05, right, with her business partner, Shannon Hill. Together they founded Magda Made, which sells products made by artisans in Colombia, including the resilient stoneware Pato Y Cruz canisters, above.

Orleans and they traveled together to Southeast Asia, India, Central America, and Mexico. They knew they wanted to work together on a socially-minded project that would allow them to integrate their passion for international travel. For Garff, it was about more than seeing new places. She wanted to learn about different cultures. What are their art forms? What are the things that they use in the kitchen? What are the tools they use? What are typical textiles you would see in a home?

In 2018, Hill moved to Colombia with her partner. “She called me and said, ‘There is such an abundance of cultural artisans here,’” Garff recalled. “It’s not Mexico, Guatemala or even Morocco, where travel is synonymous with artisans. Colombia is a little different. It has a stigma of being a drug cartel-run country, not a popular travel destination. There was kind of a whole untapped network of incredibly talented artisan communities whose work has not been seen or valued and appreciated the way we thought it should be.”

Garff took her first trip to Colombia in 2018 and she and Hill started Magda Made later that year with a handful of artisan partners. “My business involves traveling a lot, and cross-cultural communication,” said Garff, who is often asked how she finds new artisans. “You’ll occasionally see something in a shop or that a friend has, and they’ll tell us what town they got it in. A lot of the artisans are quite recognizable if you visit the town. The towns are so small. Connecting with locals is a way that we find the items we incorporate in our inventory. We have been to so many areas of

Chamba, a traditional black pottery made in central Colombia, is considered to be the oldest form of ceramics found in the Americas. The Magda Made Cipriano Basket was added to the Curated by Anthropologie line in August.

Colombia that Colombians haven’t visited. We get told that all the time: ‘You’ve seen more of this country than we have.’ To travel and explore and find beautiful things — we want to get to know the artisans and spend lots of time in very remote areas of Colombia.” The pandemic hit Colombia later than the United States, and the impact was significant. “There was quite a serious wave of political protest that has disrupted the logistics landscape. Aside from the pandemic, that added another layer of obstacles,” Garff said, sharing what she tells their customers: “Many of our artisan partners are located very remotely. Some of them we can’t get to. Most of them don’t use email; some don’t have cell phone service. Some of this is par for the course in this field. If we have an order and there is a heavy rain and it prevents the fibers from being dried properly or on time, then the whole order gets delayed. We can’t control the weather in a remote region in Colombia and that’s how they make their bags.”

Specifically, Garff referred to the natural fibers such as fique, iraca palm, moriche (a sturdy, non-itchy palm fiber), paja tetera (wild vine) and chocolatillo, that artisans in Colombia weave into bags that are like individual pieces of art. As the website explains, “In recent years, artisans have formed the Asociación de Artesanos la Gloria de Dios — a predominately female weaving collective focused on basketry. Baskets are made from two types of naturally dyed palm fibers and larger baskets can take up to several weeks to complete.”

“If it rains for three weeks straight, that affects production,” said Garff. “We have to be prepared to problem-solve. We always make sure to say the end result, the product that you’re selling, depends on a lot of factors: the weather, the political situation, the growing season. If a natural dye is made from a seed that grows in a special climate, and the crop doesn’t grow, we won’t have that color. It makes it really interesting and exciting and never a dull day. Aside from the pandemic there are a lot of factors that change day-by-day so we’re used to having to problem-solve pretty regularly.”

Beyond this, Garff said the impetus for starting the business was always to have a socio-economic impact. “One of our original ideas was to open an ecohotel. Shannon is a yoga teacher. I have a background in human rights and development. We never went into business to make money. We are not fair trade certified for a number of reasons, however we work under the guidelines of a lot of the fair trade standards. We have thorough discussions with our partners about their time, labor, material costs, etc., and we make sure that they are pricing their products appropriately, and well within, if not above, a minimum wage equivalent. At the top of our priority list is making sure these artisans have economic opportunities.”

For the past few years, Garff has tended her growing business carefully, and Magda Made is now ready to secure more investors and start scaling. “We feel confident in who we are as a brand and what we’re hoping to accomplish. We would love to be in bigger stores,” Garff said.

As for that Cipriano Basket featured by Anthropologie? It’s part of Magda Made’s collection of “cuatro tetas” baskets, named for their feminine shape. The artisans who make them are part of the Canaán indigenous community, consisting of more than 30 families who were displaced by Colombia’s armed conflict 12 years ago. “This business doesn’t rely solely on us,” Garff said. “We prefer to act as a platform for our partners, and we never take credit for design or work. We are always transparent in who made the items, where they were made, and what from, so that customers can have as much information as possible about the items they are purchasing.”

Top: Baskets made from bejuco yaré, a resilient and natural vine fiber native to South America; Above, hand-pressed palm prints on paper made from fique (succulent fiber) plants. We always make sure to say the end result, the product that you’re selling, depends on a lot of factors: the weather, the political situation, the growing season.”

– Malachi Garff ’05