Generation Y

We've heard all the stories. Today’s youngest employable generation, Generation Y (or the Millennial Generation, those born between 1977 and 2002) is spoiled. Members of this generation can’t accept challenge, and they hate to lose because their parents constantly sheltered them from the disappointment of failure.

They’re restless, and they don’t like to work. They’re even a little selfish, hopping from job to job to job until they finally find one that meets their needs without requiring them to change to fit into a company’s culture.

“Generation Y is much less likely to respond to the traditional command-and-control type of management still popular in much of today’s workforce,” says Jordan Kaplan, an associate professor of managerial science and human resources management at Long Island University-Brooklyn, in a 2005 USA Today article titled “Generation Y: They’ve arrived at work with a new attitude.”

“They’ve grown up questioning their parents, and now they’re questioning their employers,” Kaplan says. “They don’t know how to shut up, which is great, but that’s aggravating to the 50-year-old manager who says, ‘Do it and do it now.’”

William A. Draves and Julie Coates, authors of Nine Shift: Work, Life and Education in the 21st Century, write that Millennials have very different behaviors, values and attitudes from the generations that came before them, specifically as a result of the technological and economic implications the Internet has brought to light.

What exactly are these values and attitudes? Are the stereotypes correct? How well does this generation fit into environments still led by older generations that may have very different professional priorities?

Greenhouse Management profiled a handful of growers and others in the greenhouse industry who belong to the Millennial Generation to find out what makes them tick. What was most apparent almost immediately was that the stereotypical adjectives used to describe this group of young men and women couldn’t be farther from the truth. At least, the stereotypes couldn’t be farther from the truth in this industry.

What we found: Generation Y growers are coming into their own in an era of change — changing consumer desires, changing technology and changing attitudes toward gardening — and they’re making the most of it. They’re seizing opportunities to learn and grow wherever they can, and they’re thriving in open, innovative environments replete with people who are willing to take risks.

Those “Millennials” who have chosen growing as their career have a passion for their work, and they’re dedicated to giving back to an industry they feel has provided them a foundation for lifelong success.

So when it comes to managing this generation, take heart: They probably take themselves and their accomplishments more seriously than you do. Read on and see for yourself what these young people are saying about their contributions — and their desire to learn even more — in today’s greenhouse growing world.

A long way from home — And loving it

Gladys Opiyo, Grower Specialist; Timbuk II Plant Company, Columbus, Ohio

Thirty-four-year-old Gladys Opiyo came a long way from her native Uganda to enter the growing world in the United States.

After studying agriculture at home and then in Costa Rica as part of a special scholarship program, she made her way to the U.S. to get her Master’s Degree in horticulture and crop science with a specialization in controlled-release fertilizers at Ohio State University.

She says she developed her love for horticulture — and an insatiable desire to learn more about exporting flowers and other plant product — very early on.

“I developed this hunger to learn as much as I can,” she says. “I developed this love, and I wanted to know about export of flowers and how to grow them and all that.”

An up-and-coming grower with unique knowledge of international practices, Opiyo says she is particularly impressed with all of the diversification that is taking place at U.S. growing locations.

“It’s no longer things like growing just one crop and being satisfied with that — people are going into different areas, the market is changing, so you don’t want to focus on just one thing,” she says. “You need to bring new people into the industry by offering something exciting for them.”

She also sees diversification as a good way to strengthen ties within the industry.

“By just talking to other growers who have had experience in different areas, the good thing is that not everyone grows the same crops,” she says. “That is a wealth of knowledge. You find if you are having a hard time growing you can call someone who knows, and that helps a lot.”

For now, Opiyo says she’s dedicated to learning as much as she can in her current position as she works to add to her employer’s bottom-line success. In the future, she’s hoping to take her knowledge back to her native country to make a positive difference.

“I would love to have my own company someday, a small greenhouse, and be able to teach and attract more young people to learn hands on,” she says. “I come from a place where simple things like irrigation are limitations.” Right now in Uganda, “We only grow crops in the rainy season, under small shade houses.”

Forming a passion from a family affair

Nick Gerace, Head Grower; Growing Westwoods/Welby Gardens, Denver

Nick Gerace, 25, doesn’t consider himself like other young people his age. After all, he knew what he wanted in a career right around the same time he learned to walk.

“I’ve grown up in the greenhouse since I could walk,” he says of his family’s company, which was started by his great-grandfather in 1948. “I watched when I was younger all of the hardships my family took on. Whether it was working 120 hours a week or stopping by every day of the week to make sure everything was okay, this is how I developed my work ethic and passion for what I do.”

Gerace says his parents made him go to college before he could work in the greenhouses full-time. So that’s what he did: He earned a major in soil and crop science then went full-force — and full-time — into the family business.

“I never really had a question in my mind, I have always had a passion for this,” he says. “I really enjoy the business and I enjoy growing things and making customers happy.”

Gerace says he feels lucky that his family embraces the innovation and openness for risks usually attributed to younger generations.

“I’m lucky, I have a really innovative family and we do a lot of things out of the ordinary,” he says. “A lot of times I’ve had ideas and we’ve tried them. We’ve really pushed new programs and new ways of looking at things. We’re always adding new programs.”

Welby Gardens has three wholesale growing locations and three retail locations. The Gerace family operates a million square feet of greenhouse, and during the busy season the company employs about 300 people on the wholesale side alone.

Despite this success, Gerace says he sees room for improvement, especially when it comes to the bottom line.

“Our prices haven’t increased with inflation, so our margins got smaller and smaller, so as an industry we need to push on getting our prices back up to where they were 20 or 30 years ago,” he says.

He also sees automation as the key to improving bottom-line efficiency. “I think we need to become more automated, we need to invest in more equipment that takes away labor because our two biggest expenses are labor and gas,” he says. “But most importantly, we cannot sacrifice the quality that we have grown our business on.”

Small-bisiness ownership, with big goals

Josh Roggenbuck owner; The Flower Farm, Bad Axe, Michigan

Twenty-nine-year-old Josh Roggenbuck may have bigger challenges than most his age that have chosen to enter the horticulture industry.

As owner of The Flower Farm, a 3,000-square-foot greenhouse operation focused on growing poinsettias, potted vegetative annuals and perennials, hanging baskets, and vegetable plants, Roggenbuck knows first-hand the challenges of business ownership and the financing trials that come along with it.

“The biggest problem we have right now is that the banks don’t understand us, and they’re so tight on regulations,” he says. “The regulations make it almost impossible for them to say yes when we need something.”

After earning a bachelor’s in horticulture from Michigan State University, Roggenbuck and his parents started The Flower Farm. The company is now in its seventh season.

Roggenbuck loves the business and loves learning as he goes, but he does wish he had prepared a bit more before embarking on an ownership experience like this.

“The biggest challenge I have been dealing with as we grow is that my education was not business-minded enough, so I wish I had had another year or two of college that was more about business strategy and financing and how to deal with the banks,” he says.

Despite the challenges, Roggenbuck says he is looking forward to the improvements he wants to make over the next five or so years.

“As we grow, my vision for stage two of our facility is to add a head house across the front of my greenhouses that would attach to the retail building we have,” he says. “That would more than double the space we have. I could also add on to the back of the greenhouses we have as well.”

Roggenbuck also has his sights set on the power that technology can bring to the growing operation.

“We just switched our point-of-sale system to a cloud-based system, and that backs up into Quick Books, the online version of cloud-based,” he says. “Once it’s done it will be really nice. I am excited to be able to do more from a laptop or a phone and have control over everything in my hands, regardless of where I am.”

Telling the story in changing times

Jessica DeGraaf Program Manager; Hort Couture, Litchfield, Michigan

Thirty-two-year-old Jessica DeGraaf has a special niche in the horticulture industry. She earned an undergraduate degree in general horticulture, as well as a Master’s Degree in horticultural marketing at Michigan State University. This education has given her impressive insight into the challenges inherent in attracting younger generations to horticulture.

“I think the previous generation, they grew their plants and sold them and they had no problem doing that,” she says. “If you look at the Boomer generation and at the people buying plant product (then) you didn’t really have to market; you put plants on the bench and they sold.

“Now, the demographics are shifting, and you’re starting to see younger people coming into the market,” she adds. “We have to focus on how to sell, we have to tell the story. Plants used to sell themselves, but now we have to come up with different ways to market and package them. We need to be evangelists: We need to figure out how to tell the story … so it resonates with the consumer.

“The younger generation doesn’t garden the way my grandmother did,” DeGraaf says. “That’s our biggest challenge, but it’s also our biggest opportunity.”

Program manager at Hort Couture for three years, DeGraaf works closely with the genetic evaluation and trialing team at C. Raker and Sons to select plant material for the Hort Couture program.

As for telling the story to up-and-coming gardeners, DeGraaf says she sees social media and related technology as key to communicating the upside of horticulture.

Hort Couture has a big presence on Facebook and Pinterest, DeGraaf says, and interest in these pages is growing.

“We’ve spent a lot of time and effort focusing on social media,” she says. “If you look at just the opportunity you have to reach consumers, to reach retailers, to reach our wholesale growers, social media is a great way to do that.

“I think the horticulture industry is far behind a lot of other industries when you look at technology and how we use it,” she says. “But I think it is going to become critical as we move into the next five years as we figure out how to make plants fun and exciting and different.”

Putting a lifelong love to great use

Chrissy Hipshier Grower; Hortech Inc., Spring Lake, Michigan

Thirty-two-year-old Chrissy Hipshier earned her degree in horticulture from Michigan State University 10 years ago, but her passion for growing spans a much longer timeframe than that.

“When I was a kid, my family had a small farm and my mom always had a big vegetable garden and we each had our own plot,” she says. “I really enjoyed it, and soon I began growing a bunch of gardens in our front yard. There was also a nursery two houses down, and I started working there when I was 17. Then that was that. I just love being outside and working with plants.”

In her sixth season with Michigan-based Hortech, Hipshier is in charge of a 31-greenhouse growing area that includes a wide array of stock beds and liner and propagation houses. She is also a Certified Green Industry Professional by the Michigan Nursery & Landscape Association.

She says she loves where she’s at in her career, and she appreciates Hortech’s innovative efforts in sustainable growing. She says the company voluntarily underwent a Michigan Department of Agriculture program to become environmentally verified. The company also has begun replacing stronger pesticides with beneficial nematodes, and the pesticides they do use are certified for organic growing, she explains.

As for the future, Hipshier says she would like to obtain more education and possibly teach future young adults about a career in horticulture.

“I don’t like to stagnate in the position I am in, so I can see myself moving more toward something where I can continue learning,” she says. “I’m also considering getting my Master’s and becoming an extension agent or a teacher at a community college.

“I’m not sure a lot of people are actually aware of this industry” as a career path, she says. “When you grow up, people tell you to be a doctor or a lawyer, not a horticulturalist. But I do think people are becoming a little more aware of the field now that more people are turning to green interests.”

Her advice for other young people looking to enter horticulture as a career? “I love plants and that’s my passion, but I wish I had taken more business classes. I really think I was lacking in that, and it would have helped a lot in my career.”