It takes knowledge, talent and creativity to have a successful landscape business in the Colorado mountains. The teams behind Rocky Mountain Trees and Landscaping (RMTL) in Crested Butte, have been demonstrating those three traits for 35 years.

The company is currently owned and operated by Steve and Nel Curtiss. They began working for then-owners Marnie Easly and Woody Sherwood in the 1990s—Steve in 1990 and Nel in 1993—while Steve was studying to become a landscape architect. Both Nel and Steve were recruited by the ski area to work the winter season and had come to Colorado to work in a ski program for students, which is where they met. The ski industry continued to be part of their lifestyle when the Curtiss family, with partner Kevin Krill, bought the business, from the Sherwood in 1999.

For many years, RMTL would operate from May to October, and over the winter much of the crew—including the Curtiss’—would work in the ski industry. “When we first bought the business, we would lock the doors at the end of October and pretty much not return until April,” says Nel Curtiss. “We had a nice reciprocal work cycle with the ski area. Employees would work at the ski area from November to April, go to the desert for mud season and work for us from May-October.”

Labor shortage inspires service changes
Even in the mountain region, the labor pool has changed dramatically over time, and in the last five years they’ve experienced a labor shortage. Nel sees “a severe lack of affordable housing in mountain towns and less emphasis on promoting trades to young people” as the two greatest factors affecting the shortage. 

“In an effort to retain key employees and cover overhead, we began snow removal services in 2007 and holiday decorating.” Steve and Nel, who bought out partner Krill in 2008, now maintain their business year-round with snow management, holiday lighting, set up and delivery of Christmas trees, and some retail in the winter months. Also important to retention was making RMTL a fun, rewarding and financially viable place to work. They’ve raised wages in order to compete with other local business sectors like building contractors and hospitality. For year-round managers, they offer health insurance, which is a significantly higher expense in the region. Flexibility with student schedules also helps bridge the labor gap.

The limited availability of students used to keep RMTL from hiring many students. But this year, 2019, RMTL reports that nearly half their seasonal staff were high school or college students. “They are wonderful,” says Nel.

“They work hard and have an enthusiasm for learning.” But the business was back to recruitment and hiring when those valuable student employees had to return to school in August, leaving RMTL to look for help to get them through the work needed to be completed through October.

RMTL has taken steps that allow them to deal with the labor shortage and still provide the full spectrum of landscape services to each customer, which is what they believe they do best. They consolidated their service area for winter work, rather than offer work throughout the valley, as they do during the summer season. This enables them to offer the same quality service with a smaller crew.

“We are a full-service landscape design, installation and maintenance company with a retail garden center,” explains Nel Curtiss. “We love the projects that we can conceptualize from the beginning and continue to maintain after the installation. I love to see the landscapes evolve and adapt in our high-alpine environment.”

Having good relationships with other landscape contractors in the region means they can refer consumers to another company that can serve them rather than stretch their own crew too far.

While the service area may have been consolidated, expanded services still allow the business grow. “The garden center was initially small, and the intent was to supply our landscape projects,” says Nel Curtiss.” However, it has become a much larger portion of our business with a growing retail market and custom planter basket services.”

Keep learning
Observing, learning, and adapting have continued RMTL’s success. “I love continuing education and find myself enrolling in many different types of classes. Within the industry, I have been CCNP [Colorado Certified Nursery Professional] certified, and I am an Advanced Master Gardner. I’ve taken quite a few courses in organic horticulture and became a certified Permaculture Design Consultant at Central Rocky Mountain Permaculture Institute in 2007.” She was considering pursuing a master’s degree in environmental management when she was accepted into the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program, a three-month business accelerator program that pushed her to explore and develop new ways to grow the business.  

Out of that program came several ideas for future endeavors including a series of workshops, classes, and certifications focused on sustainability and permaculture, though Nel admits she’s been too busy in the business that she hasn’t yet had the time to implement them.

Issues around environmental sustainability remain an area of interest, and the Curtiss family continues to learn more so that they can educate and support consumers about how to be better stewards of the earth through their own landscape.

After earning a degree from Colorado State University in natural resource management, son Dylan Curtiss has returned to Crested Butte to become a full-time team member. While he works on the core business offerings, he and Nel have also taken on more experimental projects in permaculture to further their learning.

This story is an excerpt from an article that originally appeared in the November-December 2019 issue of Colorado Green magazine. See the full story in the digital edition.

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