Dear IPEMA, I started a backyard putting green design and installation business using artificial turf in 1998 in Georgia under the name Pennington Golf Design. Our golf course construction took us all across the USA, Europe and the Caribbean. We branched out into multi-family, senior housing, hospitality, driving range and private golf courses.
Around 2001 and 2002 as the landscape and lawn monofilament yarns became available, tested and aesthetically pleasing we began to do more and more lawn work. This lawn work also brought more market segments and the installation of playground surfaces, vet-boarder-dog daycares, lawns at rehab facilities. Our multi-family and senior housing customers grew rapidly across the USA. We were one of the very first customers of Polygreen Foam, using this below the turf to create safe surfaces.
In late 2005 we looked to expand our reach through franchising, changed our brand to IntelliTurf to better represent our company and market reach. We opened our first franchise location in 2007. During the housing crisis and market downturn in 2008-2011 we built many public works projects for parks and schools, primarily through our playground installer contacts. In 2008 we began using a fabric backing on our turf that is 100% 1-Step recyclable, drained at over 300 inches per hour and was a technology leap forward. Franchise locations grew and we have ridden the growth of the turf industry.
In 2022 we altered our business Brand from IntelliTurf to Grass!365 and began marketing our updated product SealTuft turf. SealTuft has a stronger construction and tuft bind, drains over 1,000 inches per hour, uses a very environmentally friendly manufacturing method and of course is 100% 1-Step Recyclable. You can get to the SealTuft explainer video on Grass365.com or see it on our e-commerce site www.sealtuft.com.
Today Grass!365 has 16 locations across the country. When we go to franchise conferences and meet other franchised chains with 500, 1,000, 2,000 or even 5,000 locations they always as why only 16? Here is a little background 1 – we are very picky and only want to be in business with people we want to spend the next 10 years of our lives with. If we follow that line of thinking then everything else usually works out. Franchise owners rarely call when things go well and we want to be in business with people who can get the job done right the first time and handle issues as adults. Issues always arise in the construction business and we need the right people to handle them. Secondly, we want to help our owners build big businesses, we don’t want 1,000 owners with small companies, we like to identify metropolitan areas that our business model fits in to nicely and find a great owner to build a great business. We have 1 owner in Dallas, 1 in Atlanta, 1 in New England, 1 in NYC metro area, these are big territories so they can build a real business. If we had 60 locations the country would be mostly sold out.
So there you have some history of our company, now to our installations. As mentioned above, we have used Polygreen Foam for many years. We have installed TurfCushion, we had our own closed cell foam manufactured and tested prior to COVID. Once Covid hit the raw material and availably for our foam became way too expensive. We had used Brock padding on many fields over the years and since 2021 we have installed Brock playground pad on around 85% of our playgrounds. Sometimes we come across specifications from architects and landscape architect that require other pads, but if we bring the project to the customer and get to use our own specifications, we use Brock playground padding.
Grass!365 and our predecessors have historically been an installation business. We are not members of the Synthetic Turf Council because we have not seen the need since we do not distribute wholesale around the country our products as a core business. We have not approached your organization to this point because our history of installations and customers never asked about IPEMA. With the growth and success of IPEMA, we are getting more and more requests to be certified. Your organization has created enough presence in the marketplace that now seems like the correct time for our company to inquire about your organization.
Please let me know next steps and the process we would need to follow for your certification.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Sincerely
Stan Pennington
Stan@Grass365.com
404-852-9499
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Bluffton, SC 29910
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