Careers

Tim: We put a road out here and they asked me, well you need to name that road. I can name it whatever I want as long as they accept it. It didn’t take me very long and I just said Opportunity View.

Tim: My brother-in-law had called me up and asked me to come up and help him in March of 1983, and I came up and it just grew from there. By the end of the first year, Todd and I became partners.

Off Screen: And who was your second employee?

John: For one winter he had one employee and that was me.

Tim; You want me to refer to John?

Judd: John’s like, my name is John Butters.

Tim: So yeah, John came on in 1989 and helped us out tremendously in the irrigation side of things and worked with Dana, and he came with a background of irrigation. It worked out real well. By 1991, Todd and I had decided to part ways and Todd wanted to start a different company. John stuck with me. We sold most of our stuff off at an auction and we started over in 1992, with just John and I. And after two or three weeks in the business, I had to go to John and say, can I borrow some money for you so I can pay you?

Hugo: When somebody asked me how long you working with Timberline, I always say I started like 25 pounds ago because I was very skinny when I started with Timberline. Okay, I remember yeah, my first day when I worked with Tim, Tim always worked hard and fast and it was like a scary game and try to hide it because you look behind their house with people that way. I go to the roadside, it’s trying to run around.

Antonio: A very sometimes fun person to work with, or hard person, it all depends how his days go.

Shawn: Working with Tim is, you know, a lot of people are intimidated. I think a lot of people get intimidated across the board when they have to work with the owner. You know, as long as you again, it comes back to as long as you’re putting in your dues, he’s going to respect you.

Jake: What I remember most about working with Tim is whenever we were transitioning from our old yard off Powers to our new facility, it’s pouring down rain, it was cold, it was a mess, and it was awesome. We got to work hand in hand moving the trailers over, moving stuff over, and it was definitely an experience. It was great.

Max: Tim taught me what KISS meant, just keep it simple, stupid. I was trying to lay out a little irrigation design and I think I had about 30 flags out there for an area that came to about four heads.

Cameron: I know some of the kind of downturns in the whole financial world kind of affected us like in 2008, but we definitely pushed through, and even recently with COVID, it’s kind of weird, we needed to, we were able to kind of push through those hard times, and I think that comes a lot from the hard work ethic that my dad started and with the people that he hired.

James: You know, a company that has gotten as big and successful as Timberline has, you’d think that a lot of people who have achieved that might have a different lifestyle. You really don’t expect somebody who is the founder and owner of an organization this large to be walking around in a pair of jeans and a work shirt, and if you didn’t know, you’d have no idea that that was our founder walking past you in the hallway. You know, so that when I say down to earth, it’s not just cliche, it really is, he’s a down to earth person. I don’t think he’s let success and growth change who he is.

Shawn: the one thing that I do get respect from him, and he tells everybody even corporate people that come into the office, that he’s the head ditch digger. You know, he’s not any better than anybody else here, and if he has to, he’ll get a shovel out and start digging and doing whatever needs to be done to get the job done.

Colton: I’d say some of the relationships that you have with even the higher ups and people, I don’t know how many owners will still go out and work a shovel and do things whenever it’s run this big. So I think that’s something my dad chose, but my dad decided that there’s a job that needs to get done, I’m always willing to do it.

Stephanie: I got to share an office with Tim for about like my first five years at the company, and so it was just really neat to get to learn from him and see how he operates. He is so knowledgeable about so many things, and the depth of his knowledge is just incredible. He, you know, will occasionally try to shove a cupcake in your face on your birthday, things of that nature.

James: You know, it used to be a lot of pranks going around, you know, people would fill somebody’s cubicle or office up with confetti or, you know, blow the air horn outside the restroom when they’re in the restroom and things like that. You know, we still have a lot of, there’s still a lot of good natured fun going on around here.

Steph: He had a like a Rubbermaid tote that he was carrying around and nobody knew what was in it, and then over on the side of the building he opened it and was showing people and there were two rattlesnakes inside of the tote. And so then after that, anytime there was like any kind of Rubbermaid container sitting in our office, I was like, that needs to leave. Don’t trust that.

Tim: Well, it was Lyn’s first day and it was very, very cold outside. She went out to her car and sat in her car and ate her lunch, and she came in and her cheeks were just rosy red. I said, well Lyn, you can sit in our conference room and have your lunch. I said, you better learn to loosen up around here, and she’s facing into the corner, so I had no idea, I walk up right behind her, dump the whole bag of confetti up around her head, so you better learn to have fun working here at Timberline. And she just sat there, didn’t know what to do, but she did about three years later and I had to go to Denver serving on a board up there, and I was in a hurry to get there, and I come out and my car is stuffed full of confetti that I cannot even get in it. I walk into my meeting and it still stuck to my backside. So Lyn got me back pretty good on that one.

Lyn: Gotta learn to have fun.

Tim: That’s right.

Keith: Cameron bought this old toilet truck, him and his buddy came in on that Saturday and decided to do some demolition derby with his truck. So they would drive up that hill and then they would blow the truck and then they’d go over and get the skid loader and the equipment, get the truck back up on it, and then they do the whole thing again, and they drive up this hill as fast they could in the tropical, you know, oh my God, kids are going to kill themselves. But I always thought it was kind of funny. You must be an Emick, you know, Cameron I thought was the smart one but obviously wasn’t. Yeah, no, the whole all the boys are just reckless in the whole family, so surprised they’re still alive.

Shawn: So when they were building a building, the detention pond was just sand, nothing but sand. It was already dug, they had already dug it out, but it was nothing but sand. We were having a barbecue celebration of some sort out here for everybody, and Tim got the wise idea to go down there and play tackle football. So you had people from me, John Rainville, to people like Hans, down there playing football, and we all knew that there was no touch, so we were tackling each other. You know, Tim was tackling people, Hans was tackling people, we were jumping on each other. It was just funny just because like a bunch of farmers, ranchers, construction guys, and gals, we all just went down there and out of the blue had a pickup game, and probably like you know mid-ankle high sand, like it was not like it was flat or anything, and it was just funny watching people eat it, you know, people mouths full of sand, sand in places you never would imagine sand could be. So it was just hilarious to watch it because you know Tim was quarterback, watching Colton go after him, and watching Colton go after Hans, watching the family go after each other like that, that was pretty hilarious too.

Keith: I know that Tim has a vision, we don’t know what that vision is, we just, it’s just grows.

Shawn: I just think that a company that can stay together for this long but also continue growing is phenomenal, and to know that it started in 1982 and now it’s 2022 and it’s been around for 40 years, and hopefully with the people that are in this company and the integrity this company has had, it will continue growing especially with the surrounding areas and how the growth here has been.

Paul: 40 years of a lot of work that’s went into the town, a lot of customer relationships have been built throughout that time. Some of the clients that we serve nowadays, we served when I first started, so that you know speaks volumes as to the quality that the company is producing out there and the training that goes into employees here. Timberline’s willing to invest in

Cameron: Seeing us make it to 40 years has been evidence of that, and that it’s about the people, it’s about the legacy really, that’s kind of how I see it.

John: 40 years is a long time, something to be proud of. If you look at what he’s built, again, number of people that are employed and you know count on this for their living, and it’s just pretty phenomenal. Took him basically a lifetime, but it’s pretty amazing what he’s built.

John: So it’s 40 years, it must be doing something right, we’re still in business.

Judd: My most memorable job that went wrong was Interquest Park. Here’s one of our biggest jobs we’ve ever had at the time. We spent a lot of time putting it all together and going through the plans, and it included building these planters on Interquest Parkway, and the medians on Interquest Parkway up north. And we get a call from the owner saying you can’t do this. So it ended up in the long run that we ate some of it, the architect ate some of it. What it showed me is, you know, yeah, we learned a lesson, we got our butts kicked on it, but we also persevered through the project and I still think it was a profitable project. We finished it and we’ve maintained that project ever since, 21 years.

John: That was my first project matter for job.

Kevin: It just shows you this team effort, there’s not too many contractors in the city that have had a property for over 21 years. I attribute that to everybody in this company. We’ve maintained that quality on that property since day one.

John: One of the things I think I’ve always felt, Timberline is just a, there’s a can-do attitude and then there’s an expectation of high quality.

Cameron: There was always hard work going on, but it was also always, they had fun doing it. It was kind of work hard, play hard kind of mentality. I always remember there were Christmas parties from way back when I was a kid, and the different things we’d put on to kind of help everybody enjoy the fun parts of it too instead of just the work. And a lot of people that have stuck around for a long time, Judd, John Butters, Tino, a lot of those guys were just here forever, and it’s interesting to see those guys now as an adult instead of just this little kid who’s like hey there’s those guys that work for my dad.

John: I do remember telling myself once in my mind, I’m not going to landscape more than 10 years, I’m not going to work at Timberline around to do something else. Here I am. I was always pretty proud of the work we did, it’s probably what kept me here.

Cameron: It was just really cool to see that kind of thing for people to be able to progress through the company like that.

Shawn: Even on the worst days in your personal life, you come here, you feel welcome, you feel warm, and you feel like you can still get your duties done here. Timberline cares about you and is here to help you as long as you’re here to help the line.

Colton: There’s a big family here and we try to take care of our own here.

Tino: For me, it’s like my other house. It’s nice. This company, these families, the other guys working together, happy with all the time.

Stephanie: It’s fun to just be part of things that are growing, and our team is really good at challenging themselves and looking at what needs to be fixed, and knowing that as we fix things that we’re uncovering new challenges and things that we need to tackle.

Keith: There was a lot of growing pains here for the last couple of years and that was really tough, and that exponential growth was very difficult to comprehend, who’s doing what and who’s responsible for this. But I think overall, as things have started to smooth out a little bit, we’re still a team and we’re still working together.

Colton: I’d say it was a struggle seeing the company grow because people wouldn’t fall in line and want the company to grow or do their part to see where it needed to go and what their spot in the company was. Everybody has to be on the same boat. If you’re not growing with the boat, you’re an anchor.

Shawn: You know, we did lose some good people that just didn’t want to change or were at a point in their life where the change just didn’t make sense for them, they were able to retire or whatever it was.

Antonio: I see this company’s success because they got a lot of good people who work here.
James: I feel that we’ve got an amazing team put together right now. I think we worked well together, we have each other’s backs, we take care of each other, we take each other to task when necessary. It’s hard work and it can be frustrating, but I think that all things considered, it’s easily a net positive that we have it on here.

Colton: I think now we have the right people in the right places that it’s going to keep growing at the same rate that it’s at, and that’s what we all hoped for, and we got drive behind that.

Cameron: One of the most important things is to take care of the people we have working here. A lot of people have fallen on hardships over the years and I’ve seen my dad come in and help take care of those people and kind of help them through some of the tough parts of their lives, and I want to keep that going. I think that’s very important.

Tim: I think of when Jacob passed and had a tragic accident, to get a call from Judd early in the morning and it was just unbelievable to me, and losing Angie here recently was another tough one, but how we pulled together, we’re able to go talk to one another and lean on each other and share that with them. And it’s been four years and four days when my house burned, and it really showed the true spirit of Timberline as a group here. I just didn’t know what to do, what do you do when everything’s gone in a sense, but I still have my wife and nobody was hurt and the kids were safe. And so it was really great for so many people to pull together and help out, to come out and dig through the ashes of our house to try and find some little trinket or thing. There wasn’t a whole lot there to find, but everybody pulled together and that’s the family that Kevin talked about before. It’s yeah, we work hard here, at the end of the day then we’re gonna go have fun, gonna dump confetti on, we’re gonna have a great Christmas party, we’re gonna really engage in each other’s lives and what we do, and if there’s something that’s troubling somebody, we hope that we can help them out to get through that.

Judd: I’ve grown up and been around these guys more than I have my family and my blood family. You know, that’s what makes Timberline special. And even though we’re at 270 people, I mean you can sit there, we were talking today, we have over 35 people who’ve been here for over 10 years. That’s a long time and you get to know people very well. You know, you can watch their kids grow up or their family come through the pipeline of Timberline. That’s what makes Timberline special to me, is it’s the people. Anybody can go do jobs. Our quality stands above everybody else by far, but it’s because the people that we get, and people come here because they want to be part of something special and I think we’ve got that mix here.

Max: Whether it’s now or back when I started, it’s what Tim has brought to all of us and to people that hire us is the can-do attitude. You know, other guys can’t get in and do, they’ll call Timberline, and yeah, we’ll figure out some way to get it done. It doesn’t matter what it is, we always figure a way.

Hugo: We’ve got a team, we know each other, we can trust in each other, so we know if I have a trouble here, okay right here I need this.

Kevin: Not one person could build this company without finding the best people in the right spots, and I think Tim, Judd, everyone here is proof of that, this collectiveness of talent that we have in the whole company.

Tim: The blessings on me and my family built Timberline, and people always ask me, well what’s your plan? A lot of it’s what’s our plan, how we do it together, and it’s really been that way. When we were doing this years ago, we’d go and okay everybody come from us, I’d go home exhausted from these lists of things that people have, the next day I was like I can’t do all this stuff, you guys got to do this stuff, but now we’re doing it more as a team and it really is helpful to move Timberline along as a whole.

Colton: I’m really excited to see what these next, this next half century holds for Timberline, see where we give it back.

James: 40 years down and here’s looking for the next 40.

Tim: Timberline’s not measured by the success of the almighty dollar, it’s by the growth of the people, and it’s a testament here. I just added up there’s 250 years’ experience that are sitting right here in this group at Timberline Landscaping. You won’t find that in any other company, and that’s probably what I’m the most proud of is the people.