Andrew Garulay, RLA

I don’t know that it would be exactly the same with an LA office, but over the years I heve seen and heard so many people who thought that they could expand their landscape companies of all sorts beyond their own abilities by hiring all the right people to run their company better than they could. …. none of them could do it.
I do know lots of…[Read more]

I could have saved so many words. I want to be Henry.

Yes, for the most part. But I would do some things myself (back is much better, but always a risk), be on site, tag and select materials, set up plantings and hardscape layout, ….

Tom, I have been doing design only as a side business for several years. Usually I hand over a plan and split because I have a full time job and don’t have the time to PM. I have “partnered up” on a couple of build jobs here and there on specialty plantings. I also used to have a landscape design/build/maintenance company several years before I…[Read more]

You recognized what it was and then you read both his name and the amount. That’s all I need to know.

I’d do a one man office design/build residential vacation home landscape company.

So, now that you have seen the payroll numbers for the “dude”, does everyone in the office know what he is making now? Do you know what all your co-workers make or did the new dude’s number just jump off of the page as you walked by the copier? Continuing to look at that was an extremely unethical thing to do. Telling others is terrible.
 
I do…[Read more]

There are toxic employees as well. There are times when employers have to manage payroll in order to survive. When that means a drop in pay or other loss to employees it is a downer that can result in negative attitudes. When it happens to all of the employees it tends to result in negative discussion between employees which can snowball into a…[Read more]

Look at the LA registration rules for the state(s) that you want to get licensed in. Most require an accredited degree or a very long internship of six or more years without an accredited degree.

   Whats up? (that is the Massachusetts version of Aloha).
I agree with Bob about not needing to be fluent in regional plants in an entry level position. In a bigger firm, you’ll likely follow Bob’s description, but in a very small office you’ll do a little of everything and learn a lot more ….. if little offices were hiring. 

The biggest factor on what to charge is what is the value of what is being produced. No one here knows either your ability, the speed of your production, the complexity of the job, or how much your prospect values what you produce. It does not matter if you are a student, a recent graduate, a seasoned LA, a self taught design/build, or a…[Read more]

Well, your first step to a positive attitude, if you choose to adopt one, is that you can see that no matter how miserable that you think you are, there are plenty who would gladly take your place. People are jealous of your position. Not to take happiness from other people’s misery, but I can tell you that there are not too many times in my life…[Read more]

There is a connection. It is based on familiarity of a fairly constant diagramming of the space around us in plan view through our entire lives whether you are an average Joe on the street or a landscape architect. While some people are more in tune than others in interpretting a plan view into a space, all of us in the modern world understand i…[Read more]

Another option is to get positive and make the best out of what is served to you. It is hard, but it can be done. I jent went through several months where I was quite negative and just decided that I was better than that. Negativism is very contagious and it sounds like it has spread through your office and has gotten to you, too. No one stands…[Read more]

Situatioal rather than Utopian or necessary.
 
It is communication no matter what media is used. Most designers use a multi-faceted approach to communication rather than leaning on one particular media or method. We each have different ways of communicating and then there are those to whom we are communicating to. Know your abilities, know your…[Read more]

My post does not suggest that it is reality for everyone to go into it carefully. There is a lot of suggestion that it makes sense to supplement WHEN YOU CAN, it makes sense to stick your toe in the water before diving in IF YOU CAN, and that you can have a better sense of how much traffic you’ll have IF YOU CAN start marketing before you go i…[Read more]

The problem with starting your own business is not the overhead or the skill set to execute the work. It is getting the work. The established people are not getting work, why do so many expect that it will be different for a new person?
 
Those that do invest in landscape architecture or even landscape design, those that I have come across, are…[Read more]

We also used to screw on redwood 2×6 vertically to face PT ties and then cap them with a wider redwood board. The question is at what point do you just change it to an all wood set of steps?
 
We also used to make slabs of 6×6 PT ties and then over lapping them. I t was good for a three or four foot wide set of steps that curved, but would be…[Read more]

I get down from time to time because most of the work that I do is very boring or just plain sucks. Sometimes I simmer there, burt sometimes I pick myself up and tell myself to kick its ass instead of letting it kick mine. I found the Winter X Games very motivational. Between goofing on their lingo and just seeing people do things that obviously…[Read more]

No snarkiness there.
That seems pretty clear as you described. My opinion is that this is everything wrong in a Practice Act. It should not be about making a profession out of making it illegal for others to do things that are reasonable without a license. Killing an entire industry to try to favor certain people is just plain wrong even if we are…[Read more]