The next 100 years

A full century ago, Clyde J. Worth and Lloyd Pottinger formed the Kankakee Nursery Company on 20 acres. The fourth-generation has taken the reins, and today, the operation ships trees from Canada in the North to Colorado in the West, Texas in the South and Massachusetts on the East Coast.

Over 100 years, Kankakee Nursery has grown to over 2,500 acres, from a few varieties to a few hundred, with hundreds of thousands of plants in production. What started as two high school buddies trying to support themselves through the Great Depression is now a business that supports the families of around 100 employees.

Meet the next generation

John and Pete Worth literally grew up at the nursery.

“The first house my parents had was on the nursery, so I’ve been here my whole life,” John says. “I came back when I was 24, and I’ve been here since.”

John and Pete’s father, Steve Worth, didn’t push them into the family business, which was appreciated. John went to school for business; he didn’t study horticulture.

“But it got to a point where I felt I could make a contribution,” he says. “So I came back and I’m really happy with where I’m at.”

John jumped into the sales force in 2007. It was a rough time to begin a career. However, he learned a lot from the experience of being in nursery sales during the Great Recession. A few years later, he transferred to inventory, and eventually his current position of inventory manager. He also manages digging crews for harvest as well as the loading dock.

Pete got a taste of the family business in high school, working in the fields, moving containers and pulling orders. He went to college for journalism and graduated in 2009. After exploring a few avenues that didn’t work out, he returned home too.

“I did minor in Spanish, so there was always a little inkling in the back of my mind that I might end up working at the nursery one day,” Pete says. “Being able to connect with some of our guys through knowing the language is something that I really enjoy.”

It didn’t take long for the third-generation owners to decide that Pete’s skills could be put to better use for the company in the office than out in the field.

He didn’t know a ton about the nursery industry yet, but his father put him on the phones. Anytime someone called, Pete would try to help with the order. That’s where he really learned the business. He’d talk with customers, but to handle an availability question, he had to learn the actual plants. So once a week, he’d drive the nursery with his dad and uncle teaching him the plants. As his experience grew, they threw more tasks at him. He started handling marketing and e-mail blasts, which allowed him to flex his writing muscles, and he redesigned the website. Today, he’s the sales and marketing manager.

Amy Curren Baker did not come straight to the nursery out of college, either. However, after having her daughter, she left her full-time job. She started working part-time at the nursery when her kids were little, then transitioned to full-time later.

“I remember coming here with my mom (Linda, third-generation owner) and I always like to say that I ‘played office’ because they had an extra desk upstairs, and I would have all my pads of paper and act like I was working like what my mom did,” she says.

Now, as the nursery’s office manager, she handles accounts payable, accounts receivable and HR.

“I am doing what my mom did before me, so she kind of taught me her ways,” Amy says.

Nick Worth started when he was 13, as a summer job that his dad, Dick Worth, suggested.

“I never really expected to get into the business as involved as I am,” he says. “It was just something that I ended up falling in love with, the more I kept coming back and being able to do different sorts of jobs, working with the trees and working with different kinds of machines and equipment.”

Currently, he handles grain marketing. The nursery currently uses 1,200 acres of land for corn and soybeans. It’s a supplemental source of income and a way to rotate crops to keep the soil healthy.

Nick has worked in propagation, done chemical applications, and plenty of digging. He enjoys working with any type of tractor or heavy equipment, from skid steers, to backhoes to front end loaders. The variety keeps him excited.

“I think that was one of the reasons I ended up falling in love with it,” he says. “There’s just so much to do and so much to learn.”

By contrast, Steve Curren, Jr. always felt he was destined to continue the family legacy. He even has a picture of him at about 5-years-old, about 12 feet in the air on the family’s old Barrett digger, wearing his grandfather’s floppy hat.

His father made sure Steve knew how to do every job at the nursery. It gave him necessary perspective for his current role as production manager.

“You’ll hear people talk about how their boss has unreal expectations because they’ve never done it before,” he says. “I can say that I’ve been out on a snowy, crappy day. I know what it takes to be out there trimming or pulling weeds all day because I’ve done it. You gain a new appreciation.”

Succession plan

There were nine total people involved in the Kankakee Nursery Co. leadership transition, which was completed in 2023. The three third-generation siblings, Steve, Dick, Linda, as well as Linda’s husband Steve Curren, transferred ownership to five members of the fourth generation: Amy Baker and Steve Curren Jr. (Linda’s children), Pete and John Worth (Steve’s children) and Nick Worth (Dick’s son).

In 2008, the third generation hired Kankakee native and financial expert Mike O’Gorman to help the company weather the recession. Mike was originally supposed to consult for three months, but he ended up staying for 15 years, including a stint as company president from 2015 to 2023.

“I think he liked the vibe of the nursery world where he could come in in jeans and a hoodie as opposed to a suit every day,” Pete says.

Mike was the liaison between the third and fourth generation, facilitating the transition. Kankakee also hired a family business consultant to help the group improve communication.

The transition itself was challenging but in terms of the day-to-day management of the company, John says it was as smooth as it could be.

The third generation all agreed to leave at the same time, but also spent a couple years planning the move, transitioning the fourth generation into managerial roles that made sense for their particular skill sets.

“Our skill sets complement each other, and they have to for this to work,” John says. “When you’re dealing with partners, especially family, it is important for everyone to recognize their role and how we can all work together.”

“When you’re dealing with partners, especially family, it is important for everyone to recognize their role and how we can all work together.”

Of course, every family has distinct personalities, and with that comes the occasional clash.

“It’s not always happy 100% of the time,” Pete says. “You’re going to get into fights and there will be arguments, but if you’re not arguing about something every once in a while, I think that means there’s something fundamentally wrong with your motivation. Everybody wants the nursery to succeed, and now that we’ve been in this two years, everybody’s proven to each other that we all want the same thing. Is communication the easiest thing in the world? No, but we all understand how important it is and that if we don’t communicate properly and sometimes speak the hard truth, if we shy away from that, then we’re not going to get to the place we want to go.”

Amy is not shy about sharing her opinion.

“It’s fun to work with these guys,” she says. “Being the only woman in a workplace full of men, I have to hold my own.”

Still, she agrees with her cousin that the fourth generation is generally rowing in the same direction.

“We’ve all worked here for a while, but now that we run the business together we have a common goal — to keep the business going and make improvements,” Amy says. “I honestly think we work really well together for five people that worked together but didn’t work with each other before.”

Production changes

Kankakee Nursery has changed a lot since the current owners’ grandfathers ran the place. For instance, the nursery used to grow 3- and 5-gallon shrubs, 2-gallon perennials — “pretty much everything under the sun,” according to Pete.

But the one-stop shop business model had its drawbacks. About five years ago, the nursery sharpened its focus. It stopped producing small shrubs and perennials and moved to strictly growing trees and evergreens.

That move was made for several reasons. First was focus. Kankakee has nearly 3,000 acres. Having that much good growing land is an advantage. The group determined the best way to utilize that was to focus on what they do best, which has always been growing trees. John thinks the shift has been important for the nursery.

“We’re not trying to do everything,” he says. “We’re just trying to grow the best trees that we can, whether that’s containers or in the field.”

Over the last five years, they’ve been adding Midwestern native trees to the plant palette, while continuing to produce large evergreen numbers. John says Kankakee’s top sellers include Swamp white oak, Autumn Blaze maple and Techny arborvitae.

Kankakee has its own budding operation, which gives the nursery an enviable amount of control, Steve says. When West Coast growers can’t produce certain items, Kankakee doesn’t have to worry because it can fill any gaps that occur in-house. The nursery also takes all of its own arborvitae and boxwood cuttings.

The nursery is also placing a higher priority on cultural practices.

“I’m a firm believer in pruning and shearing, maybe more than we have in the past,” Steve says. “Not to say we didn’t do a good job, but going out a little more to make sure that what we’re putting out in the market is not only comparable to you find, but exceeds the quality you’d find at other places.”

Native movement

Balled-and-burlapped trees are still the majority of Kankakee’s business. It’s about a 75/25 split between B&B and container trees.

“B&B has always been our bread and butter,” Steve says.

The nursery still plants 60,000 trees in the field each year. For the customer looking for a 2-inch, 2.5-inch tree, B&B is still the way to go. Still, Kankakee continues increasing containerized tree production because they see healthy demand for both.

About 30 years ago, the nursery started using pot-in-pot container production. Over the past five years, Kankakee began using fabric grow bags from Root Pouch, especially for native tree production. Steve says that area of the business has really grown unit-wise, as it offers not only a new package but a new client base because of its smaller size and more palatable price point. Pete points out the grow bags are made out of recycled water bottles, a nice nod to sustainability.

Additionally, John says there are certain native trees that have never worked very well in a B&B environment. Whether it’s taproot or transplant issues, the fabric grow bag solves some of their production problems. Plus, they’re available year-round with no need to dig.

A few years ago, the Morton Arboretum started its Chicago Regional Tree Initiative, and the Kankakee team saw that as an opportunity to do what they always have done — grow trees — just in a new package.

“They needed volume,” John says. “They needed Midwest-grown, Midwest native trees that are small enough for volunteers to plant, but big enough to actually look like something and survive.”

The 15-gallon grow bag hit the sweet spot.

“You don’t need heavy equipment like you would to auger in a big 3-inch B&B tree,” John says. “That’s an advantage for a segment of our market.”

Sales growth

Kankakee has customers from as far West as Colorado and far East as Montreal. Pete and the team has increased its sales staff from four to seven, which is more appropriate for the inventory in the field.

The company recently added a sales person for Texas and Oklahoma. Those customers may not be able to buy the full range of Kankakee’s selections, but there are some plants in their lineup that work for that region. Similarly, the nursery hired its first dedicated East Coast sales person and added a representative covering Wisconsin, Minnesota and North Dakota.

“I’m trying to basically have boots on the ground in every possible region that could buy plants from Kankakee,” Pete says.

Having someone local is important, he believes, because customer relationships are built by face-to-face interaction.

“My grandpa basically built out the Colorado market for us by taking my dad and his siblings on vacation,” Pete says. They’d be hanging out at the hotel and swimming in the pool. And he would go knocking on nursery doors trying to tell them about Kankakee Nursery.”

Family culture

Kankakee is a family-run business, but the family in charge likes to include everyone that works there as part of that family.

That’s shown by the 12 employees that have been at Kankakee for 40 years and the 20 employees that have been at the nursery for 30 years. All the nursery’s employees are local to Kankakee County.

Steve says the culture and environment their grandfathers and parents instilled is instrumental in employee retention. If you keep people engaged and let them know you truly do care about them and their families, he says, they’ll stick around.

“Everybody has turnover, but we’ve been able to keep people for so long that it became more than just a place to work (for them), it became a family,” he says.

Like many nurseries, Kankakee Nursery needs more labor at certain times of year. In Spring, the nursery tops out at 85 employees.

About 12 contract diggers come up from Texas each spring. So around 100 people are out roaming around the nursery at its busiest.

As office manager, Amy deals with the employees a lot. And while she learned kindness, patience and understanding from her mother, traits that help her every day, she learned important lessons from her father as well.

“If I’m gone for the day and somebody calls and they have a problem, I want them to know my phone’s always on,” she says. “That’s one thing I learned from my dad. Just because he walked out the door at the end of the day, that didn’t mean the work day was over. That was part of running a business. You’re always on call.”

The future

The nursery industry is hard to predict and slow to react. That’s reality when it takes from three to eight years to bring a plant to market.

“You’re looking at this crystal ball trying to figure out what’s going to happen,” Steve says. “You make educated decisions. Right now, arborvitae are very hot. Autumn Blaze maples, oaks and native plants are really hot now. In a couple years, will that still be true or will the market be saturated because everyone sees them? It’s hard to tell.”

When you see sky-high demand, resist the urge to make large changes to your production. Steve says the way to succeed is through small changes. Don’t overreact to the market. You can’t just switch long-term crops on or off.

“Change with the times while still staying true to who and what you are and what got you this far,” Steve says. “As we change and add more containers or more evergreens, we still know that the trees are what got us here.”

John says one of the keys to Kankakee’s success stems from treating every customer the same.

“You don’t know what’s going to happen in five, 10 years,” he says. “The small customer who is buying 10 trees today could be buying 1,000 trees in a couple years, so treat all customers with respect. Relationships are still a big part of this industry, and we value that. The fact that we’ve been around for 100 years speaks to that.”

Customers will stay loyal because the trees are high quality, and they trust that the values of honesty and integrity have been passed down through the family, Pete says.

“When things go wrong, because they do, sometimes, they know that we will stand by it,” he says.