
On July 15th 2017, a small caravan of YardScapes Inc. fleet vehicles began making its way from the company’s headquarters in New Milford CT to Washington DC.
The contingent includes YardScapes Inc. founder Shayne Newman, along with employees Greg Kaiser, Isauro Perez, Alfredo Aviles, Richardo Hernandez, Filemon Garza, and Ruben Meza-Villeda, and Maximus Juarez who are traveling to Washington DC for four days of volunteer landscape maintenance at Arlington National Cemetery, a professional development retreat, and meetings with Federal and State Officials. The events, titled “Renewal and Remembrance” (R&R) as well as “Legislative Days on the Hill 2017” are being hosted by National Association of Landscape Professionals.
“Every year is an incredible honor and a privilege to work with my peers in DC” stated Newman. “We put our hands and heads together at Arlington National Cemetery as well as Capitol Hill to improve the Landscape Industry, the environment, and labor issues. It’s crazy in retrospect. In 1990 when the company first started, we (Landscapers as a whole) were merely viewed as dirty guys that mowed lawns. Thankfully we are now empowered to improve so many things beyond a lawn’s physical turf condition. R&R/Legislative Days on the Hill is a total event that gives us the chance to honor our Nation’s past by physically sprucing up Arlington National Cemetery, the present by facilitating networking and cooperation between hundreds of different Professional Landscape Contractors, and the future by making light of and acting on relevant issues by our elected officials. I’m so proud of the industry and Nation as a whole, because Landscape Professionals are breaching the simplistic notions or stereotypes of what a Landscaper is or is capable of”.