FROM CHILDHOOD FUN
TO
CITYWIDE INDUSTRY
2008
THE START
In the beginning - Green Worx landscaping was not always called "Green Worx". The company began with a simple childish desire for candy. This is not an uncommon occurrence among 8-year-old boys, but this was different. RJ Duarte wanted to buy the candy himself.
In spring of 2008, RJ's older brother gave RJ a lawn mower, red wagon, and 5 weekly lawn mowing clients.
2012
A PARTNER IN CRIME
Enter: Owen Johnson. On the first day of middle school for Owen, he clambered onto the school bus and looked around. He saw RJ, and he took a seat next to him.
RJ's addition of Owen to his team was out of necessity. His clientele base had grown way too big for him to handle it on his own. Owen became an increasingly integrated part of the company as he worked on more jobs each year. The growth was enormous despite the kids' humble intentions.
A BUSINESS DECISION
2014
In 2014, now more than a neighborhood operation, RJ needed a name for himself and Owen. He settled on Green Worx. After massive success during that summer, he and Owen sat down and talked. They realized that what they were doing was entrepreneurship. They decided to run Green Worx as a business.
A DIGITAL AGE
2015
In the winter of 2015, RJ and Owen applied their business to The Celebration for Young Entrepreneurs. To do this, they realized that they were more likely to win if they had some sort of video to go along with their application; so together they produced a movie advertising Green Worx.
They won first place.
That fall they constructed the first incarnation of their website. With a digital presence, the business had the ability to grow faster than ever.
GROWTH & EXPANSION
2016
RJ and Owen made the decision to make Owen the president of the company in February of 2016. Soon after, they hired another employee by the name of Mats. He was to start as a laborer, helping with the day-to-day heavy lifting.
The Golden Informer found out about how unique Green Worx was. They wanted to write an article about Green Worx's story and success. It wasn't your average half-page article, Green Worx was the cover. The phone didn't stop ringing all season.
In June of 2016, Green Worx was nominated and won the Young Entrepreneur of the Year award By Ernst & Young Foundation, the second business award
granted to Green Worx.
By the end of 2016, Green Worx was 300% bigger than the year before.
THE PRESS
2017
In 2017, Green Worx had expanded its team, adding two new laborers to help with increasing demand.
In Late 2017, Green Worx was approached by an online news service called Moneyish.com. They sent a journalist to do a short article and video on how the company came to be. That December, the article and video dropped. The resulting wave of press that Green Worx received took them completely by surprise.
A NEW ADDITION
2018
In the wake of the enormous amounts of press, the RJ and Owen pulled the trigger on what would be the biggest business decision they'd made in a long time. RJ and Owen had been tracking down a good third truck to add to their growing fleet for a long time, the only problem was that it was in Ohio.
So the two bought plane tickets and flew out to Cleveland, where the new addition was acquired. Keep in mind they both had school Monday morning at 7 am, and no adults would be accompanying them on the adventure.
SHIFT IN MANAGMENT
In 2018, after more than five years of working with Green Worx Landscaping, and fresh out of High School, Owen decided to part ways with the company in order to pursue a college education. RJ and Owen are still good friends and frequently meet to discuss Green Worx and life as a whole.
JUST GETTING STARTED
2019
After making a hard decision to postpone going to college, RJ kept pursuing his dreams of building a Full-Scale Landscaping Company. With encouragement from several mentors and friends he decided it was time to pursue bigger and more intricate projects. Green Worx added two construction crews, lots of equipment, and began to undertake large landscaping projects. Although Green Worx had always been busy the shift in scale brought a new set of challenges. At the end of 2019 Green Worx had successfully completed several dozen landscape construction projects, this would lay the foundation for what Green Worx is today.
RJ was featured in the September issue of Entrepreneur Magazine after this massive increase of Green Worx’s scale.
A TOUGH YEAR
2020
2020 has been an uphill battle for everyone. With a global pandemic causing Local, State, and Federal governments to implement lockdowns & restrictions on small businesses; Green Worx had to shift gears in a big way. Instead of scaling up our crew size during the peak summer season, we decided to keep the crews small. The result of this let Green Worx return to some sense of normalcy. Our crews, their families, and our customers safety is our number one priority. Thanks to the continued support from our community, and our crews' diligence to keeping themselves and others safe, Green Worx was able to have another record breaking year.