Bridget Spiegel Joins ELM as Assistant Controller

Posted by Eastern Land Management on August 17, 2023

Bridget Spiegel’s impressive resume in business and accounting did not come with a green thumb when she joined ELM in April 2023. But in the last few months, she’s developed a passion for landscaping that aligns with her passion for the environment.

Bridget is ELM’s new Assistant Controller. She has a Bachelor of Business Administration and Accounting from Iona College, and several years’ experience in the construction and building industries. “She’s a great fit for our team.” said President Bruce Moore Jr. “She brings strategic thinking and a next-gen spirit that will not only help us shape the future direction of our company but strengthen our administrative foundation.”

A native of New Rochelle, New York, Bridget was inducted into Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society and Alpha Beta Gamma Business Honor Society and says she’s thrilled to work in the green sector and for a company that works towards minimizing our impact on the planet.

“From the firm’s extreme professionalism to its commitment to a truly sustainable future, I’m excited to be part of the ELM community. I look forward to learning more about what I can do to at ELM to support innovation and growth, while picking up a few tips to improve my green game, as well.”

Welcome to the green industry, Bridget.

Jordan Skiba, ELM Intern, Seeds His Climb to The Top

Posted by Eastern Land Management on August 2, 2023

A recent UConn grad with a Bachelor of Science degree in business administration is this summer’s intern.

“An intern with a path to the future,” says Bruce Moore Jr. who’s pegged Jordan as someone who adds the kind of high-energy talent that easily translates to a long-game role.

Jordan brings a lot of plusses to ELM: he’s Stamford born and raised. He worked in the hospitality industry through college, has had a passion for landscaping since forever, and likes being hands-on. Plus, he’s smart, a nice guy, and loves sports and family.

Jordan currently has his hands full with research projects, learning the lay of the land, and getting to know people and projects.

Jordan says, everyone has been so welcoming and helpful, he can hardly wait to grow his career while doing whatever it takes to support ELM’s success.

Welcome, Jordan. Go Huskies.

Green is the color of second chances.

Posted by Eastern Land Management on June 28, 2023

Underutilized office properties have found new life in greener pastures. With the addition of diverse amenities, enhanced sustainability, and tax incentives, landlords find that converting tired properties into dynamic new communities is environmentally more sustainable, more practical, and more cost-efficient than building new.

This is good news on a lot of levels. As sustainability becomes more of a strategic imperative and less of a service, landscaping will play an ever greater role in optimizing the environmental impact of adaptive reuse by decreasing the intensity of carbon, reducing debris and waste, and creating lively outdoor spaces that people want to live, work, shop, socialize, and play in.

Eastern Land Management has worked closely with its CRE clients over the years to green up both old and new properties, helping its clients forge a vision for greener footprints–enhancing plant-filled college campuses, nature-rich downtowns, and pedestrian-friendly outdoor spaces–where our collective passion for nature, excellence and renewal can improve the quality of life.

We think revitalization is the future of urban living with its focus on water, resource and energy conservation, and drought-tolerant landscaping that is chosen as much for visual interest as it is forage for the birds and the bees.

ELM won an Award of Excellence for Downtown Stamford urban beautification from the National Association of Landscape Professionals in 2022, and a Fairfield County ChangeMaker Award for Sustainability in 2019, but our change journey didn’t stop there. Our diverse segment portfolio is steeped in awards and success stories, with landscaping that compliments riverfronts, waterways, trails and bike paths, corporate plazas and college dorms, university athletic fields, hospitals, HOAs and senior communities; and on-structure ‘green roof’ landscapes featuring recreational amenities and bocce ball courts where you’d least expect to find them.

Nature isn’t nine-to-five and neither are we. We’re working 24/7 to increase asset value through better, faster and smarter ways of delivering value and working with commercial property thought leaders to green light a healthier future.

Bruce Moore Jr., president of Eastern Land Management, is an active member of the greater business communities of Connecticut and NY Metro. He is a member of SoCT BOMA Board of Directors, and a member of Westchester County BOMA. To partner with ELM on green building strategies or to learn more, contact Bruce at 203-316-5433.

ELM was a Bronze Sponsor for June 9, 2023, Westfair Communications Annual Real Estate event, “The Conversion of Commercial Properties: What are the creative options?”

Marc Angarano Returns to ELM to Lead North Region Sales

Posted by Eastern Land Management on June 9, 2023

Commercial landscaping sales executive Marc Angarano has returned to ELM to lead the growth of ELM’s regional operation in Monroe, Connecticut. He joins an ELM business development team that also includes Stamford, Connecticut south region sales lead, Ted Marron.

“We’re in a period of great opportunity to create solutions that create value, offer a better use of technology, and ways to drive green performance. With our upcoming 50^th anniversary in 2026, Marc will play a critical role in shaping what that looks like,” said company president, Bruce Moore Jr.

Before joining ELM, Marc served as a business development executive with BrightView, and held account and operations management positions with The Brickman Group.

“Marc’s passion for sustainability and his insight on competitive advantage will help us align our mission and operations to directly support our clients’ objectives,” added Bruce.

Please join us in welcoming Marc back to ELM.

Contact Marc at mangarano@easternland.com

How Colleges Can Optimize the Value of Landscape to Meet Strategic & Academic Goals

Posted by Eastern Land Management on May 2, 2023

As a campus facility manager, you know that staying competitive means continually investing in your grounds. But with undergraduate college enrollment in its steepest decline on record, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and data from the National Student Clearinghouse, making the case for continual improvements gets harder, pushing many facility managers to seek landscape service partners that can identify new ways to keep your campus landscape a high-performing resource.

Knowing how to respond to challenges and how wisely money will be allocated is an opportunity to ensure that the full potential of the value of the investment in landscaping can be realized. To Eastern Land Management, this means delivering more innovative solutions and a value-based approach to landscape and grounds services.

With 48 years’ experience spanning public and private K-12, to land grant and private colleges to the Ivy league in Connecticut and New York, ELM has a long-history as a discreet and unparalleled landscape partner-of-choice. The company’s proactive, professionally managed approach to maintaining campus landscape and grounds is a process that ensures that the school, the land, the natural resources, the landscape and the built environment work in harmony with the school’s commitment to excellence.

Key elements that make us strong campus partners

We work with facility managers to reemphasize the flexible space between buildings, and meet landscape, grounds and site objectives at a strategic level.
We improve data driven decision-making with technology platforms.
We find creative ways to rise to the challenge of deferred maintenance.
We advise on energy management programs to reach sustainability goals and drive cost savings.
We follow best-practice guidelines in horticulture, plant health care, integrated pest management, and water conservation to break new ground on sustainable solutions.
We create a consistent and reliable approach to service excellence, working with facility managers to set priorities and deliver the greatest value.
We provide multiple delivery models, including outsourced partner, onsite partner, consulting partner, or in specialized service areas, such as water management and athletic fields.

Leading change in four critical areas

ELM received the Fairfield County ChangeMaker Award for sustainability in 2019, and we continue to support sustainability goals in the following ways:

Safeguarding water
- Reducing runoff
- Promoting permeable paving
- Collecting rainwater, where feasible
- Implementing landscaping that has high rate of absorption
- Incorporating bioswales and bio-retention areas, and constructed wetlands
- Utilizing drought tolerant planting
- Installing high-efficiency irrigation systems and digital water saving technology
Conserving resources
- Reducing green waste
- Minimizing waste impacts
- Using renewable, biodegradable, low-impact, and non-toxic materials, as feasible
Improving energy efficiency
- Planting deciduous trees for seasonal shading
- Using energy-efficient equipment
- Using renewable technologies
- Increasing the use of cost-effective tools and alternative fuel
Enhancing environmental quality
- Creating healthy outdoor spaces and landscape solutions that support learning and enhance the quality of life
- Restoring soil health to improve carbon sequestration, combat soil erosion, retain water and nutrients
- Using non-toxic products, as feasible, to improve plant health and reduce pests and disease
- Increasing the use of low-maintenance, drought tolerant perennials, meadows, eco-lawns, groundcover
- Protecting habitats and promoting biodiversity
- Using eco-friendly alternatives to salt for winter snow and ice management

At ELM, our goal is to make all the elements of the landscape work together for a more sustainable and resilient future. To learn more, contact sales@easternland.com

When it comes to landscape and plant health, prevention is the best cure.

Posted by Eastern Land Management on March 29, 2023

Your lawns, trees and shrubs are a growing investment worth protecting.

ELM’s new all-season plant health care program is designed to do that, and more–including scheduled inspections and treatments to keep your soil balanced and nourished, your plants healthy and beautiful, and keep destructive pests at bay, all year long.

Landscapes, like all living things, benefit from good health and if your lawn, plants and trees could use a boost, here’s what we recommend:

Early Spring – Apply horticultural oil to control scale and over wintering stages of many insects.
Early spring – Inject a balanced fertilizer into the root zone to boost the overall health of the plant and create new top growth. This will provide the plants with the needed nutrients to last the entire season.
Spring- Use foliar spray (a practice that involves applying spray directly to a plant’s leaves) to combat insects such as scale, mites, leaf miners, leaf beetles, and webworms just to name a few.
Spring- Apply optional fungicide spray as needed and do an overall health assessment and recommendation.
Summer- Apply second round of foliar spray to strengthen and protect plants from insects.
Summer – Schedule a summer inspection for any signs of fungus or disease and make recommendations for any further applications of fungicide.
Early fall – Apply a third and final foliar application of insect control to combat any late season insect damage and to help in the prevention of egg laying on the plants.
Fall – Inject a balanced fertilizer into the root area to enhance root growth, improve winter nutrient storage, and a healthier and faster green-up and growth in the spring.
Late fall – Apply anti-desiccant for winter burn protection and conserve plant moisture during the cold and windy winter months.

Deer ticks in the northeast are benefitting from warming winters, raising health risks and the potential diseases that they may carry. ELM offers deer repellents, deterrent services, and tick control and prevention—in addition to strategic landscape maintenance practices that reduce tick habitats.

Contact ELM’s plant health care expert Martin Minogue at mminoque@easternland.com, for a complimentary evaluation. And learn why prevention is not only the best cure, but the most cost-effective way to avoid fewer problems with insects, disease and environmental stress in the future.

5 Ways to Look Beyond Cost When Sourcing Landscape Services

Posted by Eastern Land Management on March 1, 2023

Bridging the relationship gap between client and contractor can be complicated. But when it works well, the payoff can be impressive in terms of performance improvement, increased revenue, and results.

When we are invited to the table for strategic planning with our commercial real estate clients, we contribute knowledge and insight. We don’t sell. This is the difference between a transactional approach and a partnership approach, and one we take seriously as a landscape services firm committed to help property and facility owners and managers find competitive advantage.

From our years of experience working and partnering with commercial real estate professionals, we’ve narrowed the conversation down to just five talking points, and what we’re doing to help you look beyond cost and source a landscape firm that can work with you to achieve greater alignment on goals.

Innovation

ELM is committed to accelerate meaningful change. We have invested in EV, automation and technology, artificial intelligence, renewable fuels, and training that improves time and logistics management, client communication, and resource efficiency—from water conservation, and rainwater and stormwater management, to energy-efficient equipment, to tax rebates, lower utility and maintenance costs, and zoning and drought allowances. We built a dedicated facility for snow operations, make our own eco-friendly de-icing applications, and mitigate environmental risk across our service lines.

Scalability

ELM’s nimble operating model allows us to scale up or scale back processes and resources to continually enhance productivity across all functions. ELM has flexibility built into its systems that all but eliminate the need for you to anticipate and respond to extreme weather events–creating a superior experience for you that is marked by expertise, speed and better outcomes.

Efficiency

ELM’s high-value services help your organization stay lean and agile, maximize your profitability, improve the quality and performance of your landscape and open spaces, and reduce liability. You gain the efficiency of the latest training, technologies and processes, access to specialized talent, and experienced subject matter experts that can help you improve your operational resilience.

Benchmarking

ELM is a metric-driven culture that uses data and smart analytics to benchmark across criteria. This improves weather and budget forecasting, helps meet conservation goals, and provides a baseline for accountability

Environmental Sustainability

ELM is focusing on strategies that help you maintain your momentum and leadership on climate action. These include site improvements, beautification programs, building and maintaining landscapes that sequester more carbon; and increasing waste minimization through improved landscape operational practices. We’re using earth-friendly alternatives, mitigating environmental risk across landscape, grounds and open spaces, and committing to increased plant and ecosystem health through continuous improvement in best practices.

If you’re looking to improve your approach to strategic sourcing, remove inefficiencies, better manage risk, and gain a partner that aligns with who you are and where your business is going, contact company president Bruce Moore Jr. at (203) 316-5433.

Photo: The Innovation Center at Sacred Heart University, Fairfield CT. Landscape and grounds sustainably maintained year-round by Eastern Land Management.

Mark A. Cammisa Joins ELM as CFO

Posted by Eastern Land Management on February 28, 2023

Eastern Land Management, a regional leader in commercial landscape and snow services, is pleased to welcome Mark A. Cammisa as Chief Financial Officer.

Mark joins ELM with 40 years’ experience in financial management. In his new role, Mark will oversee the firm’s financial and administrative operations.

“We are delighted to add Mark to our leadership group. He comes with the dynamic mindset we’re looking for and as a growth-oriented leader and mentor, he will be a major asset to our entire team as we accelerate our momentum toward our half-century milestone—and beyond. We look forward to Mark helping us as we continue to grow across every facet of our business,” said Bruce Moore, Jr., ELM president.

A native of Ardsley, New York, Mark graduated Maga Cum Laude with a Bachelor Degree in Business Administration from Iona College. He is a member of AICPA.

In addition to a proven track record in financial leadership, Mark is a nationally-recognized coach with a life-long involvement in Youth Amateur Wrestling. A former middle school head coach, Mark is a Member of the Junior Olympic Committee for USA Wrestling and was inducted into the CT chapter of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2016. Mark is active in the Danbury community where he and his wife raised three children.

Please join us in welcoming Mark to ELM.

The ABCs of RFPs: what CREs need to know about finding a landscape partner

Posted by Eastern Land Management on February 3, 2023

If you’re a commercial property or facility professional, RFPs – Request for Proposals – will sooner or later fall within your task bucket.

As a procurement tool, RFPs can be a great leveler. But they also don’t tell the whole story; they can feel like tedious wheel reinvention for both parties, and when they’re ‘kitchen sink’ approaches – or ask for everything but, there is no room for differentiation.

We think there’s a better way.

With spring start-up season just around the corner, here’s our advice for tailoring your landscape services RFP to give you the best partner for the job.

Why RFPs can be a race to the bottom

Service companies that respond to RFPs essentially engage in a bidding way, ending up in a pool of contractors who compete on price. When landscape companies compete on price, it’s because they often look for cheaper options to deliver on apples-to-apples specs. The bad news for property and facility professionals who contract landscaping services through RFPs is that you get what you pay for – a hamster wheel of RFP-won contractors who cut corners on innovation to offer price instead of value.

We believe that value is a competitive advantage. When you eliminate value, you lose the upside value brings. In the ever-increasing, ever-complex world of collaborative service partnerships, an ill-conceived RFP can yield more problems than solutions.

How to make RFPs a win-win

For both landscape services contracts and complex landscaping projects—those with upgrades, renovations, and performance and environmental improvements—a well-written RFP can be effective at filtering out weak players. To create a consistently good RFP and RFP process, think about shaping your RFP as an RFV – or Request for Value.

In addition to describing what you and your commercial property or facility needs and your expectations for delivery, include specs for your sustainability goals and context for what the landscaping itself will meet, such as: key site performance indicators for carbon neutral or LEED. Include the ‘need to haves’ and the ‘nice to haves’, criteria for curb appeal and improved asset value, and communicate actual timelines with a realistic deadline for the contractor to respond.

Avoid generalities, proof-read for typos, edit for clarity, and eliminate redundant questions and contradictory requirements. If your RFP-issuing team is not clear on specs, risk mitigation, and expected outcomes, go back to the drawing board to make it better and tighter.

A cautionary note about AI-enabled technology: When the RFP response process is automated, do the math. While automation offers efficiencies and fills out things at a much quicker pace, the scope piece – when compared to non-automated bids – may not add up. Always double check to make sure you’re not getting apples-to-oranges.

If you’re looking to save cost, remember: low-bid doesn’t tell the whole story. The best return on investment will always be calculated by actual and perceived value, and the long-term value that comes from a strong relationship.

We do our best work when we work with people—face to face, building connections, friendships, and opportunities to gain trust. Our advice? Use your RFP as a solid starting point. A way to open the door and start a conversation, and a way to make sure you’re getting more than a team of qualified vendors, but a strategic partnership where value is created and delivered every step of the way.

Spring is the time of renewal in nature and in the procurement office. If you’re renewing your contracts, seeking to find a new landscape partner, or interested in keeping the conversation going, give us a call.

We’re listening.

Contact President Bruce Moore Jr. (203) 316-5433.

Bruce Moore Jr. is a second-generation landscape industry leader and President of Eastern Land Management, a full-service commercial landscaping business serving the property and facility market in Fairfield County Connecticut and Westchester County New York.

Bruce is an active member of BOMA Westchester County and BOMA Southern Connecticut. He currently serves on BOMASoCt board of directors.