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Harris Wheeler
Founder and Owner of Grounds Maintenance Consulting and Training Services
VTC Board member Harris Wheeler has recently been working closely with the board and leadership to advance turfgrass and landscape professionals across the state. This partnership is a piece of the larger puzzle of VTC and The Environmental Institute building bridges through service, advocacy and environmental stewardship. Harris brings a lifetime of experience and unique perspectives on building and growing the workforce. We sat down with Harris to learn more about his background and his goals for working with VTC.
How did you decide to pursue a career in the landscape and turfgrass management industry?
I really didn’t make that decision. I kind of backed into it. It all started as a youngster, I was four or five years old, and I spent a lot of time with my grandparents down in Pendleton, South Carolina. My grandfather had a farm and a big garden, so we were outside all the time. Then we moved to the city, which was Columbia, SC. My mother always had a garden and I hated it. She wanted us to work in the garden, dig up the garden, pull the weeds. I didn’t realize I was developing, I wouldn’t say a love for the outdoors, but just being acclimated to the outdoor world.
Fast forward to 1983, my teenage nephews were having some troubles, and their mother called and said she couldn’t handle them. I said, “Well, let them spend the summer with me.” I decided that we would cut some grass in the neighborhood, so we made a little flyer and went door to door, because I told them we’re going to work, they weren’t going to just sit around and watch TV all day long. We started cutting grass in the neighborhood and at the end of the summer my nephews left and the customers kept calling me. I was working an insurance job, as an adjustor for the Travelers Insurance Company, and I was just wanting to go outside. I decided to do lawn work part time and get another job working with youth. I quit my job in 1984 to work for a youth agency and found out that I had too much business coming in and I couldn’t do both. I quit that job and started cutting grass in the neighborhood, and that’s how I really got started.
You’ve been a horticulture instructor and you’ve done the actual work of running a lawncare company, but now your business has a different direction. How did that process evolve?
First of all, I was a wayward youth. I didn’t like education, and my senior year I was about to flunk out of high school. I did graduate, and when I graduated I was crying because I couldn’t believe I graduated — but then I roamed the streets for a while, then by the time I got to be 24 years old, I got married and started college, I was mature enough to handle the college world.
I got an inter-disciplinary studies degree from the University of South Carolina, but I majored in music education. But I did go into the insurance field because they offered me a good paycheck and a good job, and I did that for four years. When I started the lawn service, the education part was still in me, so that took me on a journey. I was the entrepreneur, head of business for seven years. It went from TLC Lawn Service to Turf Master, and I shut the business down in 1991 because I had a lot of challenges in the business, a lot of things I didn’t know.
I started working for the City of Richmond as a senior labor and trades crew chief, and I worked for the Housing Authority as a grounds supervisor, then back to the City of Richmond as a senior gardener, and it was during that time I began to really study the horticulture field. The guy that mentored me was a senior gardener and he would take me to the greenhouse and show me the propagation and all the systems they had, the fertilization plan and all the books. So I became really engulfed in studying this craft and that led to me volunteering at the Richmond Technical Center. They hired me as a horticulture instructor part time in 1998, and I went full time in 2000, so I taught from 2000 to 2013. It was high school students from 9th to 12th grade.
Some of the requirements of teaching in public schools right now have a heavy focus on testing, but you understood that was not always the right approach for your students?
I think it was around 2005 and SOLs were beginning to be a real big barometer for finding out where children were academically. It drifted over to the technical center, so they had us doing a lot of testing – NOCTI testing, OSHA testing, career-readiness testing, just one after the other. The students were doing pre-SOL test, then SOL test, then post-SOL test. I had one girl who basically had a meltdown. She said, “I’m not taking this no more!” A lot of my students felt the same way and I had reached the point that enough is enough. Because the business I’m teaching is horticulture, there is a timeframe from September to about Thanksgiving that you have to get a lot of work done. My first two and a half months, most of my kids spend in the lab taking tests. When they finished all their tests, then they could do what I’m supposed to teach them. Well by that time it’s about 30 degrees outside. That was a frustrating part, so I ended up retiring at 62 because I felt like I couldn’t give the kids what I really wanted to give them.
Let’s talk about that Consulting and Training Services portion of your company GM-CATS. Who does that involve and how does it work?
Right now I’ve got a couple of small businesses under my wing and I’m actually working with them hands-on, going out to the job site with them. There’s a lot of little things, trade secrets that you learn. At the same time I’m teaching them the different type of grasses, different type of weeds, different safety precautions they need to implement. Because I worked for insurance for three years as a claim representative, and one of the things I did all day long was to investigate accidents, that has come in handy because when I got into the lawn care industry, there were a lot of safety issues in this field.
I’m also working with a man, Mr. Bob Argabright. He has an outdoor learning center on south side. It’s called the Oak Grove- Bellemeade Outdoor Learning Center. He developed this himself, so it’s really an outdoor classroom and I’ve helped him and volunteered, but we’re hoping to set up an even more polished program next year at that outdoor learning center. He has primarily middle school kids coming to the outdoor learning center. And that’s where you can get the students interested. They have a garden there, about five or six chickens, a little creek where they check the water, look at the guppies, a beaver playground. Just kids enjoying the outdoors, the bird watching, that sort of thing and I’m involved in that.
When students can link theory with hands-on application, then the theory has a bigger impact. For example, I have a college degree, and that’s good, and I have academia behind me, but I end up doing blue collar work. But I truly understand how those two mesh, and really you can enjoy both of those worlds, academia versus the trades world. But I think there’s a separation in those two areas that sometimes we get mixed up in seeing how closely they are related.
What motivated you to join the VTC board?
Tom and I go back a few years. It started probably around 2005 or 2006, and one of the things I did with students was take them on field trips. I called up Tom at the spur of the moment, about the winter conference in Fredericksburg. I talked to him on the phone and he said, “Bring your kids on up, don’t worry about it, just bring them up.” I brought my kids and they had a blast. I thanked him so much because it was the last minute and he didn’t charge the kids, he didn’t charge me. I had maybe 15 kids and they got to tour all the different things. So that’s when our relationship really started, and after that from time to time we would talk.
Last year we did a project together in Petersburg, and he worked me really good. But it was a fun project and we really got to know each other more and he asked me to be on the board. I wasn’t seeking to be on any board, but he asked me. I like what they’re doing and I know some of the people on the board, and I said okay, I’ll do it.
What do you hope comes from this relationship that you have with VTC?
I think my niche as an African American is to bring that to our community. There’s very few in the field of horticulture that I know of, and I think a lot of things have happened to cause a lot of people to disdain this field. The results of what happened years ago, the “I’m not going to get my hands dirty,” sometimes even a slavery-type mentality. I think I have to be the one to show them, this is fun. It’s almost like there’s a stigma on people who get their hands dirty outside. I want to make sure that I share with people that it’s okay to get dirty. Especially to people of color – it’s okay. You don’t have to have a tie and suit and an office. You can work outside, and you can have a good living and have a lot of fun. I think that’s part of my niche. And just because you have a college degree or don’t have a college degree, you can still do this kind of work. I just finished the professional turfgrass manager program at Virginia Tech, and that was the hardest course I’ve taken, even in all my college courses. I want people to know that it’s not about getting somebody who can just grab a lawn mower and pull it and that’s it. It’s a lot more involved. I go back to wanting to help educate the public that there are so many careers and advantages of going into this agriculture or horticulture field.
What do you do outside of work?
I’ve got a lovely wife of 47 years and I have two grown children, ages 40 and 38. I have three grandchildren, ages 3, 4, and 7 and I have a blast with them.
I’m always picking at my wife. I just pick and we have a lot of fun back and forth. Besides that, I spend a lot of time in church, I’m a Sunday School teacher. I taught ages 6–10 for probably the last ten years. I enjoy the church and the spiritual part of my life.
I am preparing now to take a lifeguard certification. I enjoy swimming, that’s something that I hadn’t planned on doing but I enjoy swimming now. I just learned how to do the flip turn not too long ago. I’ve got a certification coming up in May – it’s a physical challenge for me to do some of the things they ask me to do. I’m still involved in music. I have an instrumental ensemble I’m in charge of at my church. I play a lot of table tennis, I’ve been a part of the Virginia Senior Games for the last ten years or so.
Right before the pandemic, I found a good deal on a pool table, put it in my basement and I love it. If I were teaching math, I would work with my kids on different angles and different things that I’ve learned about math through pool. One of my teachers said, “It’s not what you do in life as your real job, it’s what you do in your leisure time.” What she was basically saying was how your leisure time is going to determine really a big part of the quality of your life. Certainly I am fulfilled, I love those things and I take time out for them, for swimming and ping pong and just having some fun. Don’t just work, work, work, work. I think that’s very important. And family time is extremely important to me.
What would your advice be for younger people in the industry?
One of the things that changed my life was a scripture, it’s Matthew 6:33 in the Bible. It says, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.” I didn’t really understand that scripture for a while, but I began to look at that and what does that really mean? Because life, if you’re not careful, can be a rat race. You’re just running, running, trying to climb the ladder of success. I had to put the brakes on a lot of things and say what does this mean? I began to study the Bible and get some understanding. I grew up in the church and I began to get some understanding of life and the things that are important. I began to set some priorities and my relationship with the Lord, with understanding the Bible and implementing and then having a strong relationship with my wife was so important, my family. You can have success in business and all these things and you lose out on family, it’s tough.
Now at 70, I’m having a blast with my wife, my kids, my grandkids. My mother will be 100 this year, I’m at her house right now. It’s fulfillment. As I get older, it’s not like, “Oh my goodness, I’m getting older.” I want to make sure that I pass on the lessons I’ve learned in life.
The other thing I’ll say is America has become, if we’re not careful, the racial divide and tensions we’ve seen the last few years – people just need to talk. We integrated the schools in 1964. There’s an article that was in the state paper down in South Carolina that says, “South Carolina Schools Integrate Quietly.” It had a picture of my dad, my brother and myself with one other person on the front page of the paper. I remember those days. I learned a lot; it was tough, but I learned a lot about people and that has helped me now in dealing with people, no matter what color, religion, you deal with people. And if you size up people and you don’t really know them, you don’t know what you’re missing. I think that life has it’s challenges, but if you’re open to learn and be accepting of new ideas, you can have a great time.
