Leading from the front

Jason Sbiral, Plantpeddler’s General Manager: Plant Production and Facilities, has been with the company for 25 years, thanks in part to the supportive team that helped shape his career.

It also helps that he’s from the area, having grown up as a self-proclaimed “farm kid” about 17 miles away from Plantpeddler’s facility in Cresco, Iowa. He studied forestry at Iowa State University and worked for the U.S. Forest Service for a year after college. Then, he moved back home and started a new career path at Plantpeddler.

“I had the opportunity to work somewhere that let me work with plants and also had the opportunity for advancement [in the company] and growth in my own career,” Sbiral says. “I started off as a general greenhouse laborer, growing a 52-week forced azalea crop that was handed over to me at that time. I even drove a wholesale delivery route a few days a week for the first few years. In my third year, we built the young plant facility.”

“Jason led the construction and implementation of turning an Iowa cornfield into a world-class production facility, and has managed it every day since,” says Plantpeddler owner Mike Gooder.

Growing young plants Sbiral’s become his favorite part of the job.

“Young plants are so fast paced with a three- or four-week rotation,” he says. “Everything has to go right. When everything is rolling, and things are going right with URCs coming in good, and when the facility is in tip-top shape regardless of the season, there's nothing better. There’s a lot of variation.”

He also likes that there’s never a “slow moment” at Plantpeddler. “I love that,” he says. “I thrive on fast-paced work.”

Sbiral adds that when he started, there was a close-knit group of people that had been at Plantpeddler for 10-15 years who made his life easier. One of them was Brenda Kubik, the previous head grower who recently retired.

Day-to-day at Plantpeddler, Sbiral says his main job is to “make other people’s jobs easier” — taking on the leadership that Kubik and others did when he first started.

Part of that process includes preparing as much as he can for everyone else and growing pest- and disease-free crops that make shipping easy. His leadership style, he says, is to be hands-on and work right alongside every team member. Sbiral prides himself on doing any job — from planting to sanitation work to integrated pest management and everything in-between — ultimately growing the healthiest plants possible.

“A good day for me,” he says, “is when I see other people’s jobs become easier.”