A LAWN LOVER: GOING FOR THE GREEN

As a home and commercial lawn and garden care professional, Paul Schnare considers his work as more than just selling a service to the customer.

Schnare owns and operates Accu-Grow Lawn and Tree Service in Cape Girardeau, and Accu-Grow Lawn Care Service in Carbondale, Ill. He recently purchased the Sunny Hill Garden Center and will continue to operate it as a separate business under the name of Sunny Hill Garden.

"Our job is to also educate the customer on how to maintain that beautiful lawn or garden, or how to care for plants, shrubs and trees around the home," Schnare explained.

"Outside of the University of Missouri Extension Service at Columbia, we're probably the largest arm of the extension service in this area because we reach more people. We probably interact with more people than the extension division here because there are more of us who talk to customers who come in with lots of questions about lawn and garden care and tree and shrub care."

To meet that commitment to public education, Schnare will publish a newsletter containing tips on lawn and garden care for his customers. The first issue is scheduled to roll off the press in March, he said.

Schnare has come a long way since the summer of 1974, when he started a tiny lawn care business in Columbia with an old pickup truck and one lawn mower.

Schnare, 45, says the decision to go into the lawn and garden care provider business dates back to his youth.

He was born and raised in Cape Girardeau, attended Trinity Lutheran School, and graduated from Central High School.

Schnare discovered his love for the outdoors, and of growing things, particularly trees and plants, as a Boy Scout. "When I was in high school, I realized I wanted a job that would keep me outdoors a lot," said Schnare. "My first love was forestry, so when I graduated from high school, I went to Mizzou and got my bachelor's degree in forestry, and a master's in forestry."

During his post-graduate work, Schnare became involved in studies of trees and flowering times for flowers, and really enjoyed the work. "I also did a lot of research work on forest soils," he added.

At about that time, the Vietnam War interrupted his studies. Schnare enlisted in the Army and served as a lab technician at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

"The Army offered me a direct commission, but I would have had to serve another three years, and it would have taken a year to get all the paperwork done," said Schnare. "I guess I should have taken it, but I didn't."

After his discharge from the Army, Schnare returned to Columbia to work on his doctorate in plant physiology, which he received in 1974. His thesis was on soybean plant physiology.

Schnare was offered a post-doctorate position as a protein biochemist at the University of Illinois' plant physiology department.

He had done most of his post-graduate and doctorate work in medical school, and in botany, chemistry, and organic chemistry, all related in the medical field.

But Schnare wanted something that would let him work outdoors, such as forestry. By that time, however, the job situation has changed. "When I started college in the 1960s, the government and forestry companies were hiring every forestry graduate that came out of school," he said. "If you had a doctorate in forestry, it was just like a union card," he quipped.

But when he received his doctorate in 1974, there was only one forestry job opening in the United States, and there were 250 other applicants for the job.

There were offers of jobs in research laboratories, but Schnare wasn't interested. "I wanted to be outdoors, working in growth research, not inside a laboratory," he said.

However, the realities of life intervened. By this time, Schnare was married, with two small children. he met his wife, Marilyn at a church youth group convention in Minnesota. She is now a registered nurse at Southeast Missouri Hospital. Their daughter, Nicole, helps out at the store, when she's not working as a cashier at a local discount store.

To make ends meet after getting his doctorate, Schnare continued his work a hospital lab technician. But he realized that was a career "dead-end," because it would require him to return to school for the training required to become a certified lab technician.

So Schnare did what any young graduate with a new family and bills to pay would do: he struck out on his own in the lawn care business.

At first he did all the work, but it wasn't long before Schnare met a Columbia businessman who owned and operated a number of service-oriented businesses, including building maintenance, pest control, janitorial supply, and a fire protection company.

"He wanted to start a lawn care service, so we formed a partnership and named it Atkins Lawn Care Service," said Schnare. " We eventually expanded into Jefferson City, Cape Girardeau and Carbondale. I stayed with him from 1975 to 1981, when I sold my interest in the company, and purchased the company's branches Cape and Carbondale."

Besides lawn and garden care services, Accu-Grow also does landscape design and installation, and designs and installs lawn sprinkler systems. The company operates a florist greenhouse on West Cape Rock Drive, in addition to their tree and shrub nursery at the Schnare's farm on North Cape Rock Drive.

"When we first started, it was an eight-month-a-year business, but with the additional services we now offer, it's become a year-round operation," Schnare said.

Other members of the Accu-Grow staff are also professionals, with degrees in horticulture, agriculture, landscaping, and management.

While he's certainly pleased with the growth of the company, Schnare does regret he no longer has much time to spend outdoors in the garden-nursery with his first love - the care and nurturing of young trees.

"The most time I got to spend outdoors last year was when I took off a week and went out to Philmont (Boy Scout ranch) in New Mexico last summer with a troop from Jefferson City. I really enjoyed it," Schnare added.

"Maybe, in about five years, or so, when we get everything organized and squared away, I can get off to the nursery, out on the farm, once in a while to mess around with the trees and do a little tree research," he continued. "That's always been my greatest interest."