Five Millennials to Watch —
Kyle Burkhart by Meta Levin
Following highschool, Kyle Burkhart, founder of Burkhart Outdoors Inc., tried several different jobs before finding the green industry. He worked at a pool, in the food business and then worked his way back to mowing lawns, something he had done as a youngster. “Every weekend and after school, I mowed lawns,” he says. “At 12, I had 20 accounts.” As a young adult, he went to work for a friend’s father, attended the College of DuPage to study interior design and eventually started his own landscape contracting business. “I learned good lessons about hard work,” Kyle Burkhart he says. Those lessons, as well as his ambition, served him well. In the last five years, since starting his career, he has, “sold millions of dollars in landscaping design-build services,” he says. His interior design studies also helped him with space planning, something that has easily crossed over into his landscape design work. “I took what I learned on the inside and applied it to the outside,” he says. The questions you ask your clients are the same, starting with: how much space do you have? How do you want to use the space? As he worked first for another landscape firm and then his own, Burkhart realized that both design and selling came naturally to him. “I’ve always been artistic,” he says. During high school he won awards in graphic design. His grandfather built boats by hand. The stories
about his work were told and re-told in Burkhart’s family. “Unbelievable craftsmanship,” says Burkhart, who includes woodworking and cabinet making among his hobbies and believes he may have inherited some of his ancestor’s natural talent. By junior high school, he was working with his hands, something he found he liked. In high school he won a state competition, qualifying him for the national contest, where he came in third place in construction design. He has combined the satisfaction he gets from working with his hands with his enjoyment of the outdoors. When he has some extra time, he loves to walk and “enjoy nature.” Burkhart also is focused on helping others. “It’s always about helping others,” he says. An active person by nature, he doesn’t like to sit still. So, when he isn’t working, he’s doing something for his neighbors, many of whom bought homes 60-plus-years-ago and now need some help with everyday tasks. “It’s about being a part of the community,” he says. Three years ago, he bought his own home, where he now has his office. He rents yard space for his landscape company. Burkhart grew up in Oswego, where his parents taught him to value honesty. It’s a lesson he has taken to heart. “I hear my clients say that they appreciate my honesty and the fact that I do what I say I’m going to do, no matter what,” he says. “When I say that I’m going to do something, I do it.”
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The Landscape Contractor September 2019