GIC: Educational Venue and Starting Point

Roscoe Klausing, Landscape Industry Certified, Klausing Group, Inc. 

Six years after founding Lexington-based The Klausing Group in 1992, Roscoe Klausing, Landscape Industry Certified, attended his first GIC in Baltimore, Md. He has gone to all but one since then. “When I first started attending GIC, I looked forward to the educational tracks,” he recalled. “I still get value out of the seminars and workshops, but now I actually look forward more to meeting with friends at the receptions and other networking opportunities.”

Klausing said he rarely attends the conference to address a specific challenge. Instead, he’s always looking for ideas on how to better his company. “Benchmarking, comparing my company’s performance to others from around the country, usually takes a priority as GIC. I can do this with the help of seminars or just by talking with other professionals there.

“For example, during the recent downturn, one of the hot seminar topics was ‘the new normal.’ Presenters talked about ways to do more with less people, for account managers to handle more accounts and for sales people to sell more business. The data and ideas they presented helped reaffirm that some of the decisions I was making back home were on the mark.

“When I first considered using guest workers, I sought advice from GIC attendees who were already using the H-2B program. But now, I’m so engaged in PLANET that I can effectively network by simply picking up the phone. Case in point, in January, I opened our company’s first branch location. The year prior, I contacted at least four PLANET members who operated branch locations. They shared valuable tips along with some challenges they faced. This was all very helpful information.”

Informal power

Even though he’s been vigilant about attending formal seminar sessions, Klausing said it’s the one-on-one at GIC that really pays dividends. At the trade show, he gets to be face-to-face with manufacturers and other industry suppliers, and innovations like last year’s Power Talk and Genius Bar gave him an opportunity to chitchat with conference speakers.

“I think the future of GIC is to place more emphasis on less formal gatherings where the exchange of ideas flows even more freely,” he emphasized. “Again, people like me find these opportunities very valuable and something that PLANET can never adequately quantify.”

In addition to GIC, Klausing takes advantage of other PLANET events and resources. He has attended Student Career Days, the Great Escape, and Summer Leadership and gives high praise to the group’s Safety, HR, and Legal consultants. “Savings in legal fees alone have been substantial,” he remarked.

The value of attending GIC often evolves from initially being a place to receive a formal industry education to later being a venue to network informally with friends. What never changes, however, is its place as a starting point: a place, as it was for Klausing and still is for first-time attendees, to become more involved with PLANET and the industry it represents.