A self-made man

Since he was in eighth grade, Derek Johnson has been addicted to what he refers to as "the game." This is the game of entrepreneurship, the process of constantly thinking up new and creative ways to manage a product.

For six years, Johnson, a UW sophomore and a member of the Delta Upsilon fraternity, has been running his own business, West Coast Landscape (WCL). Each year the company is getting more and more business in rapidly growing Whatcom County as word has begun to spread about this small start-up company led by the 20-year-old Johnson.

While growing up north of Seattle, in Bellingham, Johnson looked to earn a salary the way many 13- and 14-year-old boys do: by pulling weeds, mowing lawns and raking leaves as well as carrying out other odd jobs here and there to make a quick dollar. While many of these young people ditch conventional yard work for the fast-food industry or other jobs typically held by teenagers and young adults moving up through high school and college, Johnson had a different plan.

"What I did sure was better than working at McDonald's," Johnson said as he cruised along Interstate 5 in the WCL company truck, a navy blue 1998 Ford F-150. Even though he and his workers had no money to start out with, he emphasized that his constant desire to find ways to provide a service for people in order to turn a profit made him stick with his plan all along while many of his peers remained skeptical about what he was doing and told him that he was crazy.

"I knew I could do this and be successful ever since second grade," he said, referring to a time when he bought a jumbo-sized carton of Airheads from Costco for a low price and the sold them in the lunchroom at school at a higher price to make money.

He explained that the key to being successful in running any business is to know what the customers want and being able outdo competitors to provide the customers with the best deal.

While candy has been replaced with laying grass, bark, stone walls and even a sand trap and putting green, Johnson still has the same mindset now that he had back then.

It was a chilly, early February afternoon with snow still on the ground in places, but Johnson walked around without a jacket while pointing out a development of newly built homes that WCL has won a bidding on to provide them with landscaping needs.

"These 20 houses are ready to go," he said, too excited about the upcoming days of production to take notice of the cold.

All of Johnson's employees are given full-time hours and they work year round.

"Our company slogan is, 'We're not the biggest unless we have the best employees,'" Johnson said.

He said there are close to 50 companies similar to his in Whatcom County, and the best way to separate WCL from all of the rest starts with stellar work from his employees, and so far he says that he's never had to fire one of his workers.

The WCL management team consists of Johnson, Jesse Reading, operations and scheduling manager, and Dan Fretz, head site foreman. Both Reading and Fretz have worked for him since the company's beginnings.

"Jesse and Dan do so much for me. It's incredible how much they help out," he said. "During the week when I am at school, they answer phone calls and e-mails for me, they adjust bids for me, deal with the rock and bark suppliers, pretty much everything when I'm not here."

While he acknowledges that Reading and Fretz are very important to building the company into a success, he admits that WCL wouldn't amount to anything without the hard work and perseverance of his crew members.

"Sometimes other companies say that they want to bid on a project and they will tell their potential customer that they will be there at 6:30 in the morning and roll in around 7," said Johnson. "Our guys will be there at 6:20, ready to go. We do extensive background checks on everybody before we hire them, and we only hire the best."

In other words, he says that he expects his crews to be able to work for him for about 20 years or so until they have exhausted their efficiency in manual labor.

Also, he mentions that productivity increases every year the more experienced employees become, which gives his company an advantage over ones that hire new help every year.

"Most of my guys (workers) have been doing this for me from the start, so they can do the job twice as fast as someone who knows nothing about landscape architecture," he said.

With as much time and effort that Johnson must invest not only away from schoolwork but also away from Seattle and the UW campus, one might imagine that he wouldn't be able to find time for anything outside of the parameters of his business world.

However, even while working 12 hour days every Saturday and Sunday in Bellingham, Johnson still manages to spend as much time as he can afford with his fraternity brothers.

"He's very involved with this house and our functions, school and his business; he's a very well-rounded guy," said Ian Cruickshanks, a UW junior and one of Johnson's closest friends in Delta Upsilon.

Cruickshanks noted that WCL gave $700 to help the fraternity raise money for the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

"He has such an advantage being able to put that (his business) on his job application," Cruickshanks continued. "It's more than I'll have."

Johnson's short-term goals are to work at an internship this summer in New York and to graduate from the UW with a degree in construction management. His long-term goal is to work for an international corporation in the trade that he specializes in such as Halliburton.

Always looking at the big picture, Johnson is careful to approach every step slowly and steadily and is looking to do everything that is necessary to turn his dream into a plan.

"I never stop thinking of new business ideas, even if it's 3 in the morning," he said.

Aside from landscaping, he has brainstormed ideas such as writing books and student guides for people who want to build their lives for success.

"Pay is just a nice bonus," he said. "While the money is nice, I do this because I love this job. I love the game. Why do something that you don't love?"

For Johnson, his love for his business has only continued to grow along with his bank account with each passing day for the past six years while many of his high-school critics got stuck working minimum wage jobs that they hated. Why not, indeed?