Brian Boucher is the quintessential entrepreneur. He first started mowing lawns at age 15. In 1997, at age 18, he started a company, Beaver’s Landscaping.

Scott Schwartz Mowing Inc. was right in the path of Hurricane Ian’s assault on Venice, Florida, last September. The slow-moving storm unleashed 130-mph wind gusts for seven hours and dumped over a foot of rain. As nerve-racking as the experience was, Scott Schwartz made the most of it.

Some people were born to do one thing in life. For Mike Crawford, it was mentoring young people in search of their own purpose. As it turned out, mowing lawns was the perfect avenue to help carry out his mission.

Karen Baxter and her late husband, Brent, had always been city folks. But they were longing for a more relaxing change of pace, not to mention a nice place to raise their five children. So they bought a home in the countryside of Hillsboro, Oregon, roughly 30 years ago. Along with that new home came a big, beautiful yard and an even bigger pasture.

Eliseo Mauricio, owner of Mauricio Lawn & Landscape Maintenance in Amarillo, Texas, learned the proper way to mow lawns at a young age. He helped out in his father’s lawn maintenance business for a whopping $40 a month. “As a kid, that seemed like a lot of money,” Eliseo relates.

Kory Knutz loves landscape maintenance. “I don’t have any desire for installation work,” he relates. “In fact, that’s even on my voicemail greeting. Maintenance is where it’s at for me. Maintenance is my sweet spot.”