Pathways to Success Job Training and Work Experience Go Hand in Hand December 20, 2005

Russell Corrie .

What started out as a little side job to put pocket change in the hands of two students has turned into a thriving business which has stood the test of time for over 22 years.

And Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Nature Care Barbados, Russell Corrie, is not prepared to cruise on his past successes but rather is playing an active role in developing occupational standards of competence which will help to ensure a pool of quality human resource from which to draw for his business and others in the Amenities Horticulture and Turf Maintenance and Management sector.

It was while pursuing a degree in economics at the University of the West Indies (UWI) Cave Hill Campus that the Harrison College and Barbados Community College (BCC) graduate and friend David Yearwood hit upon a plan to earn gas and spending money by borrowing their parents’ lawn mowers to cut lawns.

Business Took Off

“It was a fairly easy business to enter. One of our first customers was Shell Bottling Company just off of the Spring Garden Highway. I put on a tie for the first time and went knocking on doors. Between Shell and the people that we knew the business took off quicker than we expected and grew faster than we expected. We went from cutting grass and planting plants to being asked to give landscaping advice.”

“At the end of the first six months we had our first employee and by the end of the first year we had ten employees,” he noted.

Russell made a decision then to give up the degree that he was doing to dedicate himself to the business. His parents, while not exactly thrilled by the idea, were nonetheless supportive of their desire to be entrepreneurs.

“We wanted to grow the business ourselves. We went to the Barbados Development Bank to borrow seed money to buy equipment but got turned down the first time because we were undercapitalised and the funding seemed to be more than we could handle.”

“However, we came up with a different business plan to borrow less money, expand a little slower and showed them existing business contracts. That loan of $6000 got us our first equipment. We had a second-hand mini moke, a small garden tractor, a built trailer, weed whackers, lawn mowers, etc, and a five-year contract to repay the loan,” Russell recalled.

The BDB loan also meant that the business venture was a long-term commitment for Russell. He bought out his first partner, who went off to the United Kingdom and another friend, Mahmood Patel, joined the business. He also realised that the direction in which the business was growing – i.e. offering landscaping advice and services – called for greater training and knowledge than what he at the time had to offer.

Strong Advocate of Vocational Education and Training

He did some research and discovered a community college located in Orlando, Florida which offered a two-year vocational programme in Ornamental Horticulture (i.e. similar to Amenity Horticulture).

“I enrolled in Valencia Community College to do the Certificate in Ornamental Horticulture. It was a very practical programme which targeted persons working in the industry but who needed further education and training. It equipped one to work, plus the college allowed me to condense the two years into one year.”

Russell had high praise for the vocational programme and indeed for the practice of combining education and training with work experience.

“I got work experience and at the same time I was being taught about landscape design, nursery plant production and landscape maintenance. However, I would say that 50 per cent of what I learned that year I learned at work. It was the opportunity to see what was done at work and then go into the classroom to see the way it should be done that was so invaluable.”

Russell, a strong advocate of vocational education and training, said he supported the idea of formal training while acquiring work experience. “Up to that time, the business was focussed mainly on garden maintenance. The training helped me to get into the nursery business…without reinventing the wheel. It was invaluable to be able to adapt what I had learned,” he said, adding, “I am a product of vocational training despite starting out with a very academic background.”

He stressed that an educational foundation needed to be academic so that an individual could go off in any direction. “At least up until 16 years old one’s educational foundation should be built on certain academic type basics. The academic foundation needs to be there in order for the vocational training to be successful,” he added.

Sound Educational Background

Russell, who sits on the Amenity Horticulture Lead Body (AHLB) formed in collaboration with the Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) Council earlier this year, noted that a sound educational background for members of the workforce was going to be critical to the success of the occupational standards and National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs) in Barbados.

“Individuals will have to be able to take the occupational standards, read and understand them in order to apply them to the work role. If basic education is lacking, it will call for a lot more hand holding, coaching and a general extending of the effort involved to train individuals (and certify them as competent). If basic education is lacking, it would mean, in other words, that individuals are not easily trainable.”

And for Russell the success of Nature Care is more than adequate proof of the benefits of education/training and work experience in building a career.

After graduating from Valencia, he opened the company’s first nursery at Paradise Hotel which led to an increase in landscaping work. “It was the part of the business for which we were getting the most requests. Because of the size of the market here, if you are going to compete for jobs, you have to have a nursery.

Later, with Leslie Taylor as a new partner, came the entry into the retail sector with the opening of the first plant shop at Sheraton Mall. Today Nature Care has two plant shops – a second one was established at Warrens in 2003. The company also does bulk wholesale in the business-to-business sector and the nursery at the company’s headquarters at Lowlands, Christ Church, supplies plants to the other departments within the company.

In addition, the company has begun exporting its services with the establishment of Nature Care SVG in St. Vincent in 2002 which serves Mustique, Cannouan and mainland St. Vincent.

Void within Barbados’ Training Culture

“Strategically that is our intention for the future, to export our business model to the other CARICOM territories through partnerships with a local entity. But in the meantime, we want to maintain and improve market share in Barbados.

But to achieve his vision, Russell understands that the human resource on which the company must grow needs to be developed. He expressed the hope that the occupational standards and NVQ programme would help to fill the void within Barbados’ training culture.

He noted that in his company the management might see the need for training but sometimes they did not get the level of commitment to the benefits of training by individuals. “NVQs will help to give purpose to training,” he noted, they will give credibility to the profession that we don’t currently have. There is still a ‘yardboy’ stigma attached to people within the industry. Usually when we get people looking for a career, we get them at the top with Phds and masters degrees, etc, and then we get entry level workers who generally have not finished their secondary education. There is very little in between.”

“People who enter the industry at entry level tend to do it only because they need to find employment. There is an absence of persons at the technician level as in other fields or sectors. For example, individuals will train as electricians and go seeking work in that area. Not usually so in the horticulture industry.”

Russell stressed that if NVQs became recognised as a qualification that offers viability in terms of a career, people in the wider society would start to see horticulture as a profession and students would see it as a viable option. He added the stigma attached to the industry would be removed and the kinds of people the industry needed would be attracted.