About TrueWinds Consulting
TrueWinds Consulting is a business management and talent recruiting firm focused on professional lawn care, landscape, and tree care. Principal Partners Fred and Kelly Haskett lead it.
- 2005TrueWinds Consulting established
- 43 yearsFred has been growing green industry businesses
- $400M+combined revenue of the companies Fred coaches
- 2006NALP Trailblazer for Lifetime Green Industry Achievement
We’ve sailed down the same course as you
We love the landscape, lawn care, and tree care business and the people in it. We love the flexibility this business gives us, and we love being outside. We’ve worked hard most of our lives to become successful at it. Now we spend most of our time helping folks like you chart your course to success.
For more than 40 years, we’ve each cultivated different strengths and unique perspectives. Together, our combined experience adds up to a pretty deep sea of wisdom.
We founded TrueWinds to help landscape, lawn care, tree care, snow, and irrigation professionals raise the bar on their sales, operational, financial, recruiting, and human resource processes.
Fred & Kelly Haskett
Mission, vision, and values
Mission
- Be accessible
- Offer solutions
- Chart your course to success
Vision
To be the comprehensive resource for personal development, training, talent acquisition, and education, to our clients and to our industry.
Our values
Trust
We commit to delivering our best at all times. You have our word.
Quality
We have the resources and expertise to provide the results our clients expect.
Service
When you need us, we will be there.
Value
We develop programs customized to our clients’ needs and create the value they deserve.
We stay in the picture
We create practices of leadership, feedback, information sharing, team design, and shared purpose that allow everyone to meet their potential and bring their best to their work.
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Set up
The systems we recommend
We help you put the systems we recommend in place.
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Stay in the picture
Ongoing support
We keep providing support as your company works with them.
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Keep track
Commitments and growth
We help you keep track of our commitments to you and to your company’s growth.
Milestones from two careers
- 1980Fred
Founds a residential lawn care company in his hometown of Dover, Ohio, with one truck.
- 1990Fred and Kelly
Fred begins 26 years as a senior leader in national and regional green industry companies. Kelly becomes a senior mortgage loan officer.
- 2001Kelly
Helps found a commercial landscape management firm in metropolitan St Louis.
- 2005Fred and Kelly
Establish TrueWinds Consulting.
- 2006Fred
Named a Trailblazer for Lifetime Green Industry Achievement by NALP.
- 2016Kelly
Joins Christine Kratcoski at Landscape Career Search, recruiting for the lawn, landscape, and tree care industries.
- 2019Kelly
Continues that recruiting work under TrueWinds Consulting.
Fred Haskett
CA · CTP · LICMFred has been growing businesses in the green industry for 43 years. In 1980 he founded GreenWorld Lawn & Landscape Management in Dover, Ohio, and over ten years grew it from a one-man, one-truck operation into a $4.5 million firm offering residential lawn and tree care and full-service commercial landscape maintenance.
From 1990 to 2016, 26 years, he was a senior leader in national and regional companies, above all The Brickman Group, ValleyCrest, and U.S. Lawns, as well as The J C Ehrlich Green Team and Landscape Development, Inc. He served as President, Vice President, Regional Manager, and Division Manager, with direct P&L responsibility for multi-state, multi-branch operations with revenues over $62 million a year.
He has consulted under the TrueWinds name since 2005, alongside those corporate roles at first. Today he coaches and consults with the owners of dozens of landscape, lawn care, tree care, and pest control companies across the country, ranging from $1.5 million to over $60 million in revenue.
His test for when an owner should call is simple: when a problem has become completely distracting from what they are trying to accomplish. He has walked in the same work boots, and built the same solutions many times, for his own companies and for clients.
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Across his career
Sales and production Fred has managed
- Over $250 million in landscape services
- $100 million in lawn care and tree care services
- $50 million in vegetation management services
- $35 million in pest control services
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Certifications
Certified in three disciplines
- Landscape Industry Certified Manager, National Association of Landscape Professionals (NALP)
- Certified Turfgrass Professional, University of Georgia
- Certified Arborist, International Society of Arboriculture (ISA)
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Service to the industry
Boards, councils, and faculty
- Treasurer, Board of Directors, Project Evergreen
- Government Affairs Council, NALP
- 3 terms on the NALP Board of Directors, and 2 as Chairman of its Lawn Care Specialty Group
- Contributing Editor, Snow magazine, and Advisory Board, Landscape Management
- 3 years on the Seminar Faculty of the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America
- Speaker at dozens of national and state conferences since 1989
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Published author
Books and writing
- E-books: The People Dilemma, From Here to There, Vision to Victory, Chaos to Control, Train To Retain, and The Green Gold Mine
- Containment System Design (1995), a guidebook for chemical storage, mixing, and recycling
- Fridays With Fred, his weekly blog
- Articles in Turf, Lawn & Landscape, Lawn Care Industry, Snow, and Landscape Management
Kelly Haskett
Recruiting and client relationshipsKelly has worked in the lawn, landscape, and tree care industry for 25 years. Before that she built her career in the mortgage industry, as a senior closer and a mortgage processing manager with an annual volume of $20 million. As a senior manager she oversaw 35,000 mortgage accounts, and in 1990 she became a senior mortgage loan officer and a leading producer at her firm.
In 2001 she helped found a $3.5 million commercial landscape management firm in metropolitan St Louis, where she was Managing Partner for Client Relations and Administration. She was responsible for sales activity over $10 million, with client retention averaging 96% a year.
In 2016 Christine Kratcoski invited Kelly to join her at Landscape Career Search, a boutique search firm dedicated to the commercial lawn and landscape industry. After Christine died unexpectedly in late 2019, Kelly continued their work under TrueWinds Consulting.
A lifetime in sales is what she recruits with. She knows the personality and the drive a good salesperson has, she can tell quickly when a candidate is genuine and when they are faking it, and she looks for a fit that lasts rather than a move made for a raise.
“I learned that the fastest way to get things moving in the right direction was by enlisting the best possible talent. No other resource was as precious or effective when it came to getting things done.”
Kelly Haskett, Principal Partner
The right people for the right roles
Kelly’s recruiting focuses on aligning the right people with the right opportunities in lawn, landscape, and tree care companies.
See How Recruiting WorksIn her community
- Board of Directors, St Charles County Parks and Recreation
- Past President, St Charles ZONTA Club
- Founding member and Past President, Lewis & Clark Pachyderm Club
- Education Council, NALP
- Co-Chair of the Children’s Program for Renewal and Remembrance at Arlington National Cemetery
- 30 years directing a toy drive for St Charles County foster children
Life between Stuart and Lake St Louis
Fred and Kelly divide their time between Stuart, Florida, aboard their 46-foot sailboat Voyager, and their home in Lake St Louis, Missouri.
They spend their leisure time sailing in the Caribbean and the Bahamas, chasing their eight grandchildren, and trying to break 100 on the golf course. Kelly’s newest passion is pickleball.
See how we work with owners
One-to-One Consulting, the Leaders’ Peer Groups, and recruiting for lawn, landscape, and tree care companies.
Chart your course with us.
30 minutes about where your business is and where you want it to go. No pitch and no pressure, because this only works when the fit is right.
Or write directly: [email protected]
