James Martin Associates
LEADING CHICAGO LANDSCAPING COMPANY
Making our clients' lives easier
Since 1977
James Martin Associates has been designing and managing practical, creative, and award-winning landscapes in the Chicagoland region since 1977. We are passionate about improving the outdoor living spaces for homeowners, business managers, and municipalities by making them more beautiful, sustainable and functional.
From projects large to small, we pull from our years of experience installing and maintaining landscapes to provide our clients with the optimal landscape and care to fit their needs.
James Martin Associates prides itself on being a nationally recognized, employee-owned landscaping firm as well as a steward of our environment. Through the use of recycled materials created at our facility and an emphasis on green and lean strategies, we do our part to help maintain the environment for our clients.
OUR CORE VALUES
WHO WE ARE AS A COMPANY
We believe that we create life-long clients by providing responsible environmental recommendations and cost-effective, horticulturally correct landscape design, construction, maintenance, and snow removal services all at unparalleled value.
We foster creativity, innovation, and growth in every aspect of our industry, from building and maintaining exceptional landscapes to promoting the long-term growth of our associates.
We recognize our ability to enhance lives as a corporate citizen by supporting the community and the charitable interests of our clients and Associates. Learn more below about how we give back, from awarding scholarships to hosting potting parties.
Our ASSOCIATES
Our Greatest Assets
The two most important traits that contribute to the success of any company is the quality of its work and its commitment to its employees. Each member of the James Martin Associates team is a valued asset. As such, we are devoted to fostering a company culture of nurturing talent, developing professional strengths, and supporting continuing education opportunities.
We pride ourselves on our dedication to safety certifications, professional staff credentials, our high rate of internal promotions, and our ability to offer shareholder status to every member of our staff.
We are committed to growing exceptional talent and strongly value work-life balance. We believe that our Associates are our greatest assets and focus on opportunities for support, coaching, training, education and development inside as well as outside the company.
Our Associates’ continuously improved expertise and skill provide our clients with uncompromising value and quality that has helped make us one of the top landscape firms in the Chicagoland area.
Creating Life-long connections
With our clients
We believe that to be successful our clients must come first. From inception to completion, our goal is to bring your vision to life.
Each project is approached with the spirit of collaboration and focus on our clients’ vision. Our personal attention, interactive design process, and ability to understand and communicate with our clients results in a finished product that surpasses expectations. We seek to cultivate lasting personal connections with our clients.
We believe that if we properly connect with our clients, they have the ability to be clients for life. One of the ways we accomplish this is through the annual support of our clients’ charities of choice as well as additional charitable donations for new client referrals.
“Thank you so much for all of the work you put into my beautiful back patio and front walk. I love it! I am definitely the envy of the neighborhood. I have received so many wonderful compliments. Thank you for your beautiful design. It is exactly what I wanted.”
“I love the design and plant selection, and the guys who did the hard work did it with great skill. I left for work that morning with a lot of dirt and destruction happening, and came home to beautiful landscaping. Couldn’t believe the transformation. Thanks for what you do – we’re fans of James Martin Associates, for sure.”
A brief history
OF OUR LANDSCAPING COMPANY
Our Founding and Beginning
in the chicago area
James Martin Associates, Inc., was founded by James Martin in 1976 and incorporated in 1977. We received our first national award in 1989 for the quality of the work performed by our landscape maintenance division. (It was the first of many!)
Through our employees’ involvement with state and national professional associations, we have been widely recognized for our leadership ability and our efforts have been acknowledged in state and national professional awards programs. Today, our company has grown to a multi-specialty company that provides services to residential and commercial clients throughout the Chicago area.
Acquisitions
And expansion
In 2013, we acquired L.I.D. Landscapes, a Boulder-based landscape management company. Since meeting in college, Jim Martin has maintained a personal and professional relationship with Phil Loughman, who was L.I.D.’s president for 22 years. Upon his retirement, Loughman sold the business to Martin. Since then, L.I.D. has grown its maintenance division and started providing commercial snow management while maintaining its roots in exceptional landscape and irrigation design and construction.
We also acquired Schwake Stone Ltd. in 2017, which for years has provided superior stone product to our design and installation team for hardscape projects. They offer specialized services such as on-site limestone cutting which only enhances the customized design elements that we can provide to our clients.
The size of our staff has continued to grow over the years in order to meet the demands for a comprehensive mix of services to an increasingly diverse clientele. With our dedicated team of employees, a stellar reputation in the industry, committed leaders, and a strong positive culture, we are excited about what lays ahead for both our company and our clients.
Running our business efficiently
INCORPORATING SUSTAINABILITY AND LEAN MANAGEMENT INTO OUR PRACTICES
Green initiatives
Sustainable techniques
In the last decade, we have created more of a focus on green initiatives to help minimize the waste in our company and industry with initiatives like in-house stone and concrete recycling and composting of landscape waste that is then reused as a nutrient-rich mulch. We also encourage our clients to take advantage of our sustainable options like organic fertilizers, native plants, and rain barrels.
Lean Management techniques
Passing on the Savings to You
We’ll get in more fieldwork for fewer dollars. Superior crew training and efficient use of equipment saves labor and fuel, allowing our crews to out-perform the competition. Some of our lean management practices include:
- Spring and winter season start-up training (reviewing safety practices, proper use of equipment, yard flow and paperwork)
- Landscape Industry Certified Technician training programs
- Weekly training to emphasize seasonal safety and production tips
- On-site storage of commonly used materials and fuel
- Appropriately sized crews that dramatically increase labor productivity
- Route density (see below)
ROUTE DENSITY
Optimized Scheduling
One of our most important lean management practices is our adherence to route density. This allows us to remove the “windshield tax” and offer more competitive pricing as well as spend more time on your site.
Our optimized scheduling allows us to travel less than five minutes between jobs so we’re not wasting fuel and money sitting in traffic. Closely grouped locations also allow account managers and supervisors to inspect your site more frequently and ensure the highest quality service.
We’ll work with you to fit your site into our existing route so we can get to your property quickly and efficiently.
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