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January 15, 2008 - I think my stock broker is mowing your lawn

Fort Collins, CO – You have a comfortable house in the historic district of town, a thriving stock brokerage business, a wife of eight years, and a child on the way, would you risk all that for an idea, for an ideal?

If your name is Kelly Giard, the answer is yes. At age 34, Kelly started looking into the idea of an environmentally friendly lawn mowing service. Everyone thought he was crazy. A stock broker mowing lawns? And why now? Instead of filling a college fund, he was filling his garage with electric lawn mowers, tractors, and solar panels.

Growing up, Kelly had been that neighborhood kid knocking on doors to mow lawns. At age 15 he had a thriving lawn business in Walla Walla, Washington. Who knew that 20 years later, he would be starting a national lawn care franchise?

Clean Air Lawn Care is a lawn maintenance company that uses clean electric and biodiesel powered equipment. The vehicles that haul this equipment have mounted solar panels which are used to charge the electric equipment during the workday. The equipment is clean and quiet; the business is carbon neutral. The EPA estimates that 5% of all air pollution comes from lawn mowers.

In the summer of 2006, Kelly decided to start Clean Air Lawn Care in Fort Collins, Colorado. It was amazing to him that no one else was doing this, but some days the reason for that was very clear. The idea was solid but some of the equipment wasn’t. After finding the right equipment, then modifying the business plan and fine tuning the logistics of scheduling, he proved a successful business model.

What next? Prove the business model in eight other markets, and another child of course. Just after Jack Giard was born, Kelly was flying from Seattle to New York to Austin. In one year, Clean Air went from a small local business to a national one with offices in nine cities across the country.

By November 2007, Clean Air Lawn Care had nine offices across the country, employed 20 people, and had a partnership agreement with Black and Decker including joint marketing as well as product development. The business was showcased on the Fine Living Network and covered in major publications such as the Denver Post and CBS News in Boston.

As Giard began franchising in January 2008, Clean Air Lawn Care was popping up in cities across the nation. Clean Air Lawn care plans to change the way America mows the lawn.

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