The company became its own independent company at the start of 2014, spinning off from The ServiceMaster Co. in a move that meant changes for both companies.
Alexander is seeing the company through its first months as a standalone entity, just as he did in the months leading up to the spinoff when the company was part of ServiceMaster.
"We have a 40-year history in the lawn care business with much of that time spent as an independent company," Alexander said by email. "The change in our status doesn’t change our objective – we will give our customers a lawn they love from a company they trust."
Alexander said recently that some of the Terminix practices and those from ServiceMaster as a whole worked well.
"From an operational and agronomic standpoint, however, our best practices have been developed within TruGreen," Alexander said, pointing to training designed by agronomic Ph.D.s to the TruGreen specialists.
Alexander said the company remains rooted in Memphis despite the change in its status.
"We plan to remain headquartered in the Memphis metropolitan area," he said. "TruGreen is a part of the fabric of the community."
Alexander added that he is spending more time these days in TruGreen branches across the country. The company has 250 branch and satellite operations with 10,000 associates working for them and serving more than 1.8 million customers.
Alexander’s attention appears to be on the same area ServiceMaster had focused – sales, service and customer retention.
And TruGreen had showed its first year-over-year increase in revenue in more than two years just before the spinoff, although the revenue bump didn’t make a dent in a customer count that dropped 300,000 in two years.
To read the article in the Memphis Daily News, click here.
