Podcast: How Two Navy F-18 Pilots Built Earthscapes Into a $10 Million Landscape Company
Before Ben Hewlett and his business partner Trey could worry about marketing budgets or equipment financing, they had to figure out how to schedule landscaping crews from the flight deck of a Navy carrier. Both men were active-duty F-18 Hornet pilots when they started their landscape side business. If one was on deployment, the other held the operation together on the ground. When both were overseas at the same time, they managed the crews remotely: crew leaders equipped with iPads, receiving instructions from wherever in the world the two owners happened to be stationed.
This is how Earthscapes Lawn and Land Service, now approaching $10 million in annual revenue, got its start.
On a recent episode of Everyday Excellence, Todd Baldwin sat down with Ben, co-owner and COO of Earthscapes, for a conversation that covers military discipline applied to a home service business, the four-owner merger that unlocked serious growth, why operations, not sales, is the real limiting factor at their stage, and what the pilot metaphor of the 50,000-foot view has to do with building a company that can run without you.
Two Pilots, One Vision: The Military Background
Ben and Trey met in Navy flight school in Corpus Christi in 1992. They flew F-18 Hornets together, both became commanding officers of their own squadrons, and both went through MBA programs toward the end of their active careers. The combination of operational discipline and business education produced what Ben describes as an entrepreneurial bug: the recognition that skills developed over decades in high-stakes environments were transferable, and that something was waiting on the other side of the uniform.
They chose landscaping. The rationale was practical: low capital requirements to get started, real demand in the Virginia Beach and Norfolk markets where they were stationed, and a business they could begin running while still on active duty. What they underestimated was how difficult it would be to run a ground operation from the air and sea. There were dark moments. Ben is candid about that: there were times they seriously considered closing the doors. What kept them going was a clear read on the trajectory and the belief that the potential was real enough to stay with.
Both retired from the Navy in 2017. From that point, they threw full effort and capital into the landscape business. The operation grew, moved into a permanent facility, and began producing profit for the first time in roughly five years of trying to make it work as a side business. That growing trajectory is what put them on the radar of Josh and Matt Eldrige.
The Merger That Changed Everything
Josh and Matt Eldrige are twin brothers who started Earthscapes in 1996. By 2021, the company was doing about $1.5 million in revenue and had hit the wall that most growing small businesses eventually hit: the owners were spending all of their time working in the business rather than on it. Every decision, every client issue, every scheduling problem came back to them. Sustainable growth was not possible under that structure.
They reached out to Ben and Trey about a merger. The logic worked for both sides. Earthscapes brought 25 years of established reputation in the Hampton Roads market. Ben and Trey brought the MBA-trained operational structure, the long-range strategic vision, and the willingness to focus specifically on building systems and processes rather than doing the hands-on work themselves. Four owners, four lanes, one company.
The goal they set at the time of the merger: ten million dollars in revenue within five years. When the merger happened, Earthscapes had just done $1.5 million. Five years later, they are right at that number. The next target is $30 million, with potential mergers or acquisitions outside the Hampton Roads area, south toward North Carolina and north toward Richmond and Williamsburg, as the likely path to get there.
The One-Stop Shop Model and the Power of Synergies
Most landscape companies focus on one area: maintenance, or installation, or chemical programs. Earthscapes is built to do all of it under one roof, and Ben describes the business model as generating real synergistic value across divisions.
A homeowner who wants a pool is almost certainly going to want a patio and an outdoor kitchen to go with it. They are going to want plantings and landscaping around the pool. And then they are going to want someone to maintain all of it. Earthscapes can be that one company for every phase of that project, something that single-service competitors simply cannot offer.
The swimming pool business itself started almost by accident. Earthscapes was subcontracting pool installations when client demand made it worth exploring. They navigated the permitting process, handled a few subcontracted installs to learn the work, and then hired a full-time pool specialist with decades of experience. The pool division is now a meaningful part of the business, and it feeds maintenance leads back into the rest of the company organically.
In revenue terms, construction projects represent about 60 percent of total revenue. Maintenance accounts for roughly 40 percent. But Ben is careful to frame the maintenance division as the foundation, not the secondary business: it is the recurring revenue, the subscription-based relationships that provide monthly cashflow and generate the construction referrals that fuel everything else.
What Is Working Now: Operations, Culture, and the Marketing Mix
Ben’s role as COO is built around one central discipline: getting on and off a job within the allotted hours. Labor variance is tracked regularly. GPS systems monitor all vehicles. Every piece of equipment has a barcode and an asset tag, and the team knows where everything is at all times. ‘If you can get on and off a job within the allotted hours, there’s a really good chance that we’re making money and we’re being profitable.’
That operational rigor connects directly to the culture. Earthscapes runs a company-wide profit sharing program, paid out quarterly, tied to overall company profitability rather than individual or division performance. When the company hits its targets, every employee shares in the result. The program gives everyone on the team a direct financial stake in whether projects stay on budget and on schedule.
The four core values hold the culture together: do the right thing always, quality over quantity, effective communication, and trust. Ben frames them as sequential and cumulative. Do the first three and trust develops on its own, between teammates and with clients. Break any one of them and the whole structure weakens. People are held accountable to those values, and departures from them are among the primary reasons the company lets people go.
On the marketing side, Earthscapes manages most of its digital presence in-house. Michelle, the wife of owner Josh, serves as marketing manager. A recently hired social media content creator produces photos, video, and drone footage of finished projects for Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube. Google Ads run in-house and are used both for lead generation and for recruitment. And Earthscapes has made a specific priority of marketing to its existing clients who may not know the full range of services available. A mowing customer who does not know about the pool or agronomic programs is a missed opportunity that in-house email campaigns are working to close.
The Lesson: Operations Before Marketing, and the 50,000-Foot View
Earthscapes had a partnership with a local digital marketing agency that produced real leads. The leads came in. And then the company was not ready to handle them. Operations could not absorb the new work without dropping the quality of the existing work. Sales capacity was ahead of operational capacity, and the money spent on marketing felt wasted because the leads could not be properly captured and converted.
Ben does not blame the agency. He is direct about where the problem was: “Sales is not the limiting factor for us. Operations is the limiting factor.” The lesson was not that marketing does not work. It was that marketing only works when the operation is ready to receive and deliver on the leads it generates. Getting the right people and processes in place is a prerequisite, not an afterthought.
The metaphor Ben returns to is the one he lived for over two decades in the cockpit: the 50,000-foot view. From that altitude, you can see the whole battlefield. You can see what is coming, what needs to change, and where the company is heading. The moment you drop down to ground level and get consumed in the day-to-day work, you lose that perspective. You get blindsided by things you should have seen coming and overwhelmed by work that should have been delegated.
‘Hire the right person so that you can step away, give yourself that 50,000-foot view from the pilot’s perspective and be able to watch and work on your company.’ This is the E-Myth insight, referenced directly: people start businesses because they are skilled at the work, then get burned out because they never stop doing the work. The business consumes them. Ben’s advice to any aspiring entrepreneur is to hire toward that exit from the ground-level grind as early as the business can support it.
And if there is no partner to keep you honest, find a mentor. Someone to give direction, challenge assumptions, and see the things the owner is too close to the business to see clearly.
At Everyday Media Group, Todd Baldwin and the team work with home service businesses to build the digital foundation that supports growth at each stage. The Earthscapes story, leads arriving before operations were ready to handle them, is one of the most common conversations EMG has with growing service businesses. The right marketing strategy matches the operational capacity of the business it is meant to serve.
Key Takeaways
- “Sales is not the limiting factor. Operations is the limiting factor.” Marketing that outpaces a company’s operational capacity does not produce growth. It produces frustrated clients, missed leads, and the feeling that the marketing spend is being wasted. Getting people and processes right before scaling the marketing investment is not a reason to delay. It is the prerequisite that makes the investment work when it happens.
- “Hire the right person so that you can step away and get the 50,000-foot view.” The E-Myth problem: skilled tradespeople start businesses, get consumed by the work they are good at, and never build the structure that lets the company grow without them. Getting above the day-to-day and working on the business rather than in it is not a luxury for later. It is the work that determines whether the company reaches its goals.
- Do the right thing always. Quality over quantity. Effective communication. Trust. Four core values that build on each other, in sequence. The first three are actions. Trust is the result. Hold people accountable to the first three and trust with the team and with clients develops on its own. Break any one of them and the whole structure is at risk.
About Ben Hewlett
Ben Hewlett is the co-owner and COO of Earthscapes Lawn and Land Service, a full-service landscape company serving the Hampton Roads area of Virginia. He and his business partner Trey are both retired Navy pilots who flew F-18 Hornets and served as commanding officers before transitioning into entrepreneurship. In 2021, Ben and Trey merged their landscape company with Earthscapes, founded by Josh and Matt Eldrige in 1996. Under four-owner leadership, Earthscapes has grown from approximately $1.5 million to nearly $10 million in revenue and is targeting $30 million through continued growth and strategic acquisitions.
Learn more at https://www.earthscapesvb.com/.
Is Your Marketing Outpacing Your Operations?
Earthscapes learned firsthand that leads arriving faster than operations can handle them is not a marketing win. It is a mismatch. Everyday Media Group works with home service businesses to build digital marketing strategies that match the operational reality of the business, so that when leads come in, they can actually be captured, converted, and delivered on. If you want a marketing partner who understands the full picture, schedule a conversation with Todd Baldwin and the team.
