Cutting Crew began in 2000 by my brother and his friend. They started the company doing small landscaping and lawn maintenance jobs in their free time in addition to working at their full-time jobs. This is when the “little guy” logo was born. At that time they hand painted him on their equipment trailers and eventually adopted the icon as their logo. I had been helping my brother with the jobs he needed more manpower for when my brother’s friend left their company. It was at this time that my father and I joined forces with my brother as partners. As a husband and father of a 5 year old and a newborn, I jumped at the opportunity thinking, “Who couldn’t use a little extra cash?” Little did I know this was going to be the start of my new dream career.

Now, let me give you a run down of a typical day in the life of Mike before Cutting Crew. Back then I started around 4:00 a.m. I would catch the Metra train downtown to Chicago where I worked my “real” job at Hewlett Packard/Bank of America. However, the best part of my day was getting outside and walking to our various locations on service calls. I didn’t even care that it was ten below; at least I was out of the office. I’d return home around 4 p.m., pick up my equipment trailer, change clothes and take care of my client’s jobs until dusk. And on top of this, we had landscaping jobs on the weekends.

Between the three of us we covered territory between Chicago and the Northwestern and Southern suburbs. In 2003 my brother decided to leave our company to focus on his career and my father was quickly approaching retirement and departed then as well. This left me with a difficult decision: keep the corporate job or take on the landscaping company full-time on my own? I was very uneasy leaving the security of a corporate job, but even those jobs were not so secure those days. It was risky to start a new small business, but I had a good customer base and had grown so accustom to the hours I didn’t even need an alarm clock anymore. Mostly, I knew in my heart it was what I wanted to do and haven’t looked back since.

My business quickly expanded from landscaping to paving patios, driveways, etc. and during the winter months, snow removal. The business has grown mainly from referrals therefore providing service that surpasses my client’s expectations is very important to me. I am extremely proud of our craftsmanship quality and our long-standing relationships with our customers, several of whom have been with me for more than 7 years. I am excited about the launch of our new Web site and redesign of our logo. It was hard to say goodbye to “the little guy” but the redesign reflects the maturity and quality of our well-established company. I do hope you browse through our photo gallery and contact us for a free estimate.

Mike and The Crew