A Truck, A Man and His Plan

After getting into landscaping by default, Tom Nierman’s business has blossomed into a successful company.

When Tom Nierman began work at a golf course in high school, he didn’t anticipate it would set the seeds for his future career.

Jill and Tom Nierman

“I never planned on opening my own landscaping business,” he says. “It started as a fluke.”

His father told him he had to go to college. So, Nierman agreed to go and said he would one day be a superintendent managing a golf course.

He began taking classes at the community college and continued his studies at Southern Illinois University, where he received a degree in plant and soil science with an emphasis in turf grass management.

From the Ground Up

After college graduation, Nierman worked as assistant superintendent at a prestigious golf course, just as planned. But not long after, there was a “change of the greens’ committee” for the golf course, and the new budget left Nierman without a job.

Yet, a friend/mentor assured him he had a future in landscaping. “He said it was more stable…a big growth area,” Nierman says. “That was about 25-plus years ago.”

“There isn’t a better feeling than when you get to a subdivision, start with one house and migrate through the neighborhood. It shows you are doing something right.”

Soon, Nierman began work for a large landscaper and moved between different operations as he worked his way up in management. But while working on a project in Chicago’s affluent North Shore area, he wasn’t seeing eye-to-eye on issues with the company’s leadership, so he quit and bought a Chevy 1-ton dump truck on the way home.

“I came home and said to my wife, ‘Guess what? We’re starting a business,’” Nierman recalls. “I thought, ‘I can do this myself.’” Thus, Nierman Landscape and Design (NLD) was born in Woodstock, Illinois.

Jill, Nierman’s wife, says she was “dumbfounded” when he showed up with the truck. “I thought, ‘Here we go. We’re going to have to live on mac and cheese for a year.’ But I knew he had the drive. He’s stubborn — that’s his personality.”

Jill, who was working as a teacher during the day, went to work for Tom in a makeshift garage office at night. “We borrowed my sister’s typewriter, and I eventually took a leave of absence from teaching to work full time with Tom,” she recalls.