Focus on people, details and promises guides emi landscape

BY PATRICK WHITE // Photos by Scott McKenna, Scaling Creative

A company’s brand identity is usually something outward-facing— a tool mostly used to communicate to clients and prospects. It’s telling that emi landscape owner Bob Marks, CSP, ASM, has "The emi Way"—a three-pillar value system—in large letters on the wall behind his desk. It’s there to remind him and everyone inside the company that emi’s identity starts with them.

Marks grew up with emi, literally. His stepfather, Ed Wigfield, started the company on the outskirts of Allentown, PA, in 1983, the year Marks was born. "Once I was old enough to do any kind of work, I was working," he recalls. "In the winter, my mom (Cindy Wigfield) and I were the only shovelers in the company."

When Marks turned 16, he became a sidewalk team leader and recruited his friends. "It was an easy sell because we’d be out all night working together, which was fun, and then we’d have an excuse to skip school the next day."

After graduating from high school, Marks went to Universal Technical Institute in Houston, TX, to become an auto mechanic. From there he was accepted into Audi’s manufacturer’s training program, which happened to be based in Allentown. So, he was back working at emi. "I went to the Audi program from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m., and then worked from 3 p.m. to 10 p.m. plowing snow, or whatever else had to be done."