Here is my first attempt at blogging. I might as well start with my background that brought me to starting my own business in the cut floral greens side of this amazing floral industry.............
I have been involved in all wholesale/distributor aspects of the floral industry for 30 years. It is the most rewarding work I could have ever asked for.....and I hesitate to use the word "work". I love what I do ! My journey took me from selling cut flowers in the Northwestern U.S. to selling from and visiting California, So America, Holland and back again......
I started out driving and selling from a box truck filled with bucket's of fresh cut flowers from the Northwest, California, South America and Holland. I sold to retail florist in Seattle. I loved the hustle bustle, the wheeling and dealing and most of all I liked the people, the buyers, business owners and my co workers. Everyday was an adventure. We had 6-8 trucks on the road. All of us were young, aggressive and eager to out sell the other route drivers. What a blast it was....
I moved to Santa Barbara, CA in the Fall of 1991 to join a co-worker who wanted to start his own brokering business. He recruited a couple more people and we were off and running. We purchased from all the local growers and made mixed boxes to order for retail florists around the country. We were on the national stage so to speak. We spoke to retail florists all over the country ..........wow- there are some great accents, and even nicer people out there in our great country. What fun it was ! Now, instead of driving and running to sell cuts, I was in an office "dialing for dollars". We found our way, and our niche. We became a new cutting edge shipper with our approach to selling large event planners and wedding coordinators. After several years of helping grow this business, I made another change to selling Colombian and Ecuadorian cut flowers exclusively for a direct grower/importer in Los Angeles. From there I took a promotion to manage a sales team in Dallas, TX for the same importer. Here I met my best friend and wife. A true Texan.....yee haw! I gave the whole Texas thing a try. I even got a cowboy hat and boots. What memories that was !
To round out and hurry up this story, we moved to Washington state in 2005. I started a cut greens company not long after. We focused on selling the finest evergreens and western Greens from the great northwest we could get our hands on. I met several great guys whos families went back generations in the salal and evergreens business. I partnered up with one of the best! Here we are ten years later, having perfected our way of leasing land, harvesting floral greens, grading, casing and shipping. We export ocean containers full of salal to our partners in Europe and Asia as well as wholesalers around the US.
Please feel free to inquire to join our family of buyer friends that enjoy our Western Greens today. We love the new business opportunity and are grateful for your interest !!
Mike