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CalWest
Nurseries, Inc.- Jack Neelon established CalWest Nurseries in 1969. After working for years in the landscaping industry, he founded a union landscaping company. Not long afterward he created a non-union extraneous branch to handle much of the work the union company could not do. Eventually, the non-union branch, named CalWest Nurseries, became its own entity and primarily accomplished projects in and throughout Orange County. Mike Whiting, Jack NeelonÕs son-in-law, took over as the Owner and President of the company in recent years. Ward Williams acts as Vice President, while Manuel Garcia & Tim Mellon serve as Construction Supervisors. David Banks & Rafael Munoz spend their at-work time functioning as Maintenance Supervisors. Williams has been with the company for 17 years and serves as the Vice President of overall operations. Williams stated that the industry has changed since he has been working with CalWest, particularly in the area of equipment. According to Williams, one of the major differences is that there is more equipment to choose from across the board to get the job done. Although CalWest uses mainly Bobcat loaders and excavators, offerings from such firms as Case and John Deere sweeten the mixture of highly refined tools that have become increasingly industry specific. Not only is there more equipment, but the overarching quality has increased CalWestÕs ability to provide superior work on their projects, when using the latest technology. "The equipment allows us to decrease the amount of hand labor, which allows us to bring more skilled individuals," said Williams. A greater amount of efficiency in the workplace and increased production schedules has also provided a needed boost in the industry and to CalWest Nurseries. "It is pretty amazing, twenty years ago everything involved handwork, which included pickup trucks and shovels, but today everything is mechanized and can be used by skilled operators to do more than twice the work we used to. Everything has changed," stated Williams. CalWest Nurseries, Inc. is based in Norco, with a branch office in Anaheim handling mostly their maintenance operations. The main offices are housed in a converted house found in the open country of Norco. Currently, the company employs a total of 160 individuals from administrative staff to laborers. CalWest Nurseries is the mother company that houses the landscape and maintenance divisions, 25% of the annual projects being devoted to maintenance and the remaining 75% going to landscaping.
Williams stated that, "CalWest is focused upon providing first-time, quality work and service for the customer, every time and in every market." It takes a special collection of people to accomplish this task, admitted Williams. Most of the companyÕs employees are tenured and have remained at CalWest for years. The fact that the employees have been with the company for a very long time shows that the work environment at CalWest has a family atmosphere. According to Williams, the turnover rate is very low and he attributes that fact to the reality that the company takes care of its employees. "There is a definitely a family atmosphere here and the relationships are built on a common knowledge of the work we do," said Williams. "We are very proud of the employees we have." Williams stated that he considers CalWest to be one of the smaller companies that is actually able to compete with the big boys in quality. "The superintendents on jobs that we work with look forward to having us come out." CalWest is also very popular on the jobsites consisting of model homes. Currently, they are working with 20-25 model home tract developers in southern California. The companyÕs reach extends from San Diego through Orange County into the Corona and Riverside areas. They do a lot of slope work as well as commercial projects, but they primarily stick close to work in the residential industry, barring challenges that might arise otherwise. Some of the most memorable challenges of recent years have come in the form of new regulations and being able to be a competitive bidder. "When there is a good product there is repeat business," said Williams. "But keeping the guys trained according to the regulations has become an area that we have greatly improved in." Scheduling is much tighter and more efficient, which allows current work to be completed on a timely basis. With a flurry of in-house improvements, CalWest staffers are looking forward to opening two new divisions in custom home landscaping. They would like to see the maintenance branch double in size and continue to enforce and support the SWPPP rules and regulations calling for specific, environmentally friendly solutions to development cleanup projects.
Apart from the daily activity of work, the guys at CalWest relax with a bone-jarring ride or two on an off-road motorcycle. Whiting and Williams will take the bull by the horns and spit some debris out in an arc of sandy rain somewhere in the desert. Whiting is also involved heavily in spending time with his family. His four children range in age from 10-16 and they all enjoy offshore power boating as well as all sorts of water and snow sports. Williams spreads his time between his family as well, most likely paying most attention to his two children, aged 7 and 5. They enjoy desert trips with the intent of motorcycle and quad racing as well as rebuilding a number of classic cars including a couple of Ford Model AÕs, a custom Buick and antique motorbikes. With the same fervor and passion they pour into their hobbies, the CalWest employees as well as administration feel that placing a high priority upon providing a complete and high-quality landscape service in addition to strong working relationships within and outside the walls of the company will continue to raise the bar for themselves and others within the landscaping industry community. In the future, Williams stated that they will provide the same service with the long-term relationships they demand. He hopes to see more growth within the maintenance division and with a slow collected and measured growth as they have had in the past, what lies ahead looks to be very positive for CalWest Nurseries, Inc. |
