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September 27, 2008

20 Under 40 - Collin Martin

Martin turns neighborhood chore into full-time business

By Raymond Linex II The Corsicana Daily Sun Sat Sep 27, 2008, 09:08 PM CDT

Collin Martin was 10 years old when he mowed his first yard with his dad’s push mower. His neighbor paid him $10, and soon one yard became four, then 100.

By the time he was 18, with the help of his dad, Bill Martin, his Collin’s Lawn Service business had three industrial-sized mowers and was cutting grass at a dizzying pace. Today, Martin, 23, and his dad still operate the business, but a name change looms.

“Since we’re not a lawn service, anymore,” Collin said. The lawn mowing portion was sold recently.

Now it’s irrigation and landscaping, stone work and fence building, and the small business has seven full-time employees outside of the two Martins. Bill retired from the oil fields two and a half years ago, and Collin says they are partners in the growing business.

“He’d mow with me after work,” Collin said of those early days. “(The business) wouldn’t be here without him. He pushed me early on.”

An all-area baseball player at Mildred, Collin graduated in 2004 and enrolled at Texas State Technical College (TSTC) in Waco, where he studied landscape design and turf maintenance.

Away from the school, he attended a two-week irrigation class, then took and passed the state’s irrigation test on his first attempt.

“It’s a hard test; it’s all physics,” Collin said. “I came back and went to work.”

By the time he got his license in 2005, he had “four or five” jobs waiting for him. Work was so plentiful, he decided to take one semester off from school.

One grew into two, and Collin never returned.

“We’ve been blessed,” he said.

For the last year, he estimates he’s worked 80 hours a week.

“I’m getting gray-headed already,” he said, chuckling. “As long as it’s not wet, we go.”

Collin still has a semi-normal life for a work-a-holic 23-year-old. He plays softball and still hangs out with friends, and stays up until 1 a.m. or so, “just watching TV.”

His business has been successful, he said, because he does what he tells his customers he’s going to do, and does it right. It comes with a price.

“Our motto is we’re not the cheapest — nor do we want to be — because we don’t cut corners,” Collin said. “We’ll be in the business next year, and the year after that.”

Collin’s Lawn Service makes its hub in the Mildred area, and does “99 percent” of its business around Richland Chambers Reservoir, he said. Mainly, it’s new home construction.

The best business is gained from word of mouth, he said.

It all goes back to those days as a kid, when the push mower became the family riding lawn mower, which eventually gave way to his first business loan and a new, larger mower.

“I’ve always been goal oriented,” he said. “My No. 1 goal is to make it look good before we leave.”

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20 Under 40 - Collin Martin

Martin turns neighborhood chore into full-time business

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