Greentown Environmental blossoms among weeds

Weeding out niggling problems is not unusual for ambitious, budding businesses. But Fermanagh entrepreneur John Ross Armstrong might stand a better chance than most at it achieving it.

Greentown Environmental, which he set up five years ago, specialises in treating and eradicating invasive and potentially noxious weeds.

Dislodging tough weeds requires a determined approach and it is exactly this quality Armstrong also applies to his business. This might help explain why in a relatively short time Greentown has become one of the fastest-growing weed control providers in Ireland.

His company currently treats 27,000km of footpaths. It also works with local authorities and government departments North and South, from the South Eastern Health & Social Care Trust in Belfast to Dublin City Council.

Armstrong's very focused approach is just one of the reasons he recently beat scores of hopefuls to win the Northern Ireland Young Leader of the Year 2015 title. The annual award, sponsored by global law firm Herbert Smith Freehills, highlights an "outstanding" business man or woman under the age of 40 in the North with "exceptional leadership skills".

Enterprising nature

Judges chose Armstrong because of his enterprising nature – he set the business up when he was 27 – and because of his ability to build a team of people and a cross-Border business from scratch.

Armstrong always had ambitions to do his own thing in life. “I’m the second son of a farmer, I knew I was going to have to leave the nest,” he half jokes.

But his family background provided the inspiration to set up his own business, which he has literally built from the ground up.

"I left school at 16 and went to Greenmount [part of the College of Agriculture, Food and Rural Enterprise in Antrim] where I got hands on experience and qualifications, and then I just kept building on my experience with every job I had and at the same time kept studying and gaining more professional qualifications," Armstrong says.

Looking back he admits that going into business for yourself in your late 20s can create its own challenges. Not least, according to Armstrong, is the small matter of winning contracts when both you and your business can be viewed by some as “inexperienced”.

“When I first started the business, there was a lot of pressure. I had borrowed money from my family to set it up.

“I was trying to win contracts and, at 27, you always come up against the age thing – both with guys you work with who are working for you and who are older than you, and then also from the point of view of convincing clients you can deliver.

“But from day one my position has always been that I will never let anyone down. This is a very operational- based business so I was determined that I would always deliver on the ground.”

He says support from other businesses in the North who were eager to help a start-up also made a difference when he was starting out.

“There were a couple of companies like Road Safety Contracts in Maghera which helped me greatly because they were prepared to give me work. When you are starting off you really need to get as much experience as possible and that’s difficult to get unless you get a company like that which is prepared to give you work.

“Once you have the opportunity to show people that they can trust you – that you can deliver a quality service and that when someone gives you a job to do, you will do it right, it makes all the difference. I think when you start your own business it is a combination of fear and belief in what you are doing that gets you through,” Armstrong says.

Because of the area in which it operates, Greentown was involved in tendering for public contracts at an early stage, something which he believes can help new start-ups get their act together very quickly.

“We had to take on big contracts. We never really had a choice so we didn’t get the chance to grow organically. I had to make decisions, learn from them, get a team in place to keep the business growing and get stuck in feet first.

Recession

“I quickly realised we had to go to where the work was. When the recession really hit in Northern Ireland, we went south. The one thing about weeds is that they can thrive anywhere; they don’t really mind about location so we follow the work,” he says.

As well as his core weed-control business he has expanded into other areas, from grounds maintenance to barrier deployment for events, and he is keen to look at other new opportunities now.

But Armstrong says his business, like many other small firms in the North, has the potential to grow faster if the uncertainty surrounding Northern Ireland’s budget is resolved.

“Budget cuts have a massive impact on us. I don’t think that politicians realise that every time they decide not to do something, like in our case whether it is weed spraying or grass cutting, it indirectly costs someone a job.”