Looking for New Leadership? Think Outside the Plant Box
March 13, 2022 
Craig Reynolds, David Derreberry, Manny Martinez
In June 2021, Hoffman Nursery in Rougemont, NC, added Craig Reynolds to the team as the company’s new Senior Director of Operations. Reynolds’ previous experience included marketing and management roles at Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines and Michelin Tire. While he enjoyed gardening as a hobby, he had no professional experience in horticulture.
Over the next few months, Hoffman continued to boost its senior management team with the addition of a Logistics Manager and a Production and Inventory Supervisor. The common theme of each new hire: vast experience across a wide range of industries, all of them outside of horticulture.
“Right now it seems like most of the hiring decisions we’ve made recently have involved people from other industries,” says Jill Hoffman, Chief Executive Officer of Hoffman Nursery, who runs the business with her husband John and son David (who currently serves as Chief Operations Officer). “I don’t think they were planning to join the green industry; they were just looking for a change.”
Even if it wasn’t intentional at first, Hoffman’s decision to enlist management talent from outside markets could become a model for the rest of the horticulture industry to follow, whether by choice or not.
“It’s very hard to find people within this industry because it’s so small, but with more people exiting the workplace elsewhere, that could work to our advantage as an industry,” says Jill Hoffman.
The Recruitment Process
The Hoffman team found Reynolds through LinkedIn, and its other new management team members have come on board through a combination of LinkedIn and employment agencies.
“We may not find the management expertise within our industry, so sometimes it has to come from bigger companies with well-developed management programs,” says Jill Hoffman. “The good news is, they’ve been coming with so much energy and they look at our industry as a new challenge for them, which makes it exciting for both of us.”
For David Hoffman, the process of bringing in new senior management didn’t necessarily start with looking outside the industry.
“We were simply looking for subject matter experts in the positions we were recruiting for, and they happened to dovetail with good candidates who were looking for new opportunities,” David says. “Fortunately, it’s worked out well for all of us.”
Onboarding and Education
While horticulture experience was not a requirement in new candidates (“We were looking for strategic ideas more than anything else,” Jill says), it was still important to familiarize them with the industry. Fortunately, this represented another opportunity.
“With the low enrollment numbers coming out of horticulture schools, we already knew we had to come up with a plan to teach our new employees, from the bottom up, about growing grasses,” David says. “It was hiring Craig that really kickstarted this process.”
One of the things Reynolds told David was that when he was at Michelin, the company actually preferred to find people from outside the tire industry, as “outside perspectives can open everyone up to new, more effective ways to manage and grow the business.”
“Once Craig got up to speed on our industry, he gave a talk to some of our other team members about what makes grasses different from other plants,” David says. “Our next plan is to develop educational materials that can be used both internally and externally.”
This will also help preserve institutional knowledge, David says, so that if someone moves on from the company, Hoffman can retain that expertise.
What’s Next at Hoffman
The addition of new management team members at Hoffman Nursery is also paying off in future planning. The company recently added the use of the H-2A program in spring 2022, and David says he hopes this will allow Hoffman Nursery to worry less about labor recruitment ad focus on growing the company.
Above all else, both David and Jill Hoffman say the recruitment of new talent has completely shifted momentum at Hoffman Nursery, with a commitment to invest time and resources in projects that perhaps had not moved beyond the idea stage.
“It’s given us the ability to embrace change and be better able to quickly adapt when necessary,” says Jill Hoffman. “Not everyone is open to change, and sometimes that includes me. But bringing in people from other areas can show you that sometimes change needs to happen.”
Meet the New Team at Hoffman Nursery
Name: Craig Reynolds
Title: Senior Director of Operations
Previous Experience: Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, Michelin Tire
“He’s successfully managed large, international teams with complex operations, and he’s applying those organizing principles here,” says David Hoffman. “He has also managed teams from around the world, which works well with the multicultural diversity found here at Hoffman Nursery.”
Name: David Derreberry
Title: Production and Inventory Supervisor
Previous Experience: Major League Baseball, DHL
“This position grew out of examining our processes and realizing we needed a sharper focus on inventory. David overseeing the process will make for smoother, more accurate inventory transactions and improved customer service.”
Name: Manny Martinez
Title: Logistics Manager
Previous Experience: Goodwill Industries, Walmart, Burlington Coat Factory
“Manny’s experience and resourcefulness make us confident we can navigate logistical challenges — even those intensified by the pandemic — while delivering high-quality plants and service.”
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