December 18, 2025 • 33 mins
This week on At Home With Roby, Michael Van Wingerden joins Trent and Patrick to share how Metrolina Greenhouses—started by his father—grew from a family operation in Huntersville to supplying annuals, perennials, shrubs, and trees to over 1,400 retail garden centers along the East Coast. From you grow when your clients grow to building the business alongside his siblings, Michael talks hard work, family, and honoring his father’s American dream.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to that home with Ruby. This is Patrick mc
isaac from Ruby Commercial and Services along with Trendy Hayson
from the Ruby family of Companies. We are your host
prince setting timers over there, many all organized and efficient.
Put that thing up there. Look at I mean, I.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Just got I just came off of four days, four
days of deady daycare.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
I got the I got the boys in line.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Oh, four days just you all the kids was well.
I was out of town when they left Thursday night.
I was out of town on a quail hunting trip
down at Buchanan Shows. Uh, it's it's apparently quail season.
And my Reagan and the three girls and Kelly Byram
(00:40):
and Kensley byrom Uh her daughter. They went to New
York Thursday night and came back last night at l
like eleven thirty, New York City, New York, New York City.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Mine, did they go to Broadway play where they would?
Speaker 3 (00:56):
And yeah they did.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
And I can't even think I'll think of it in
I got like a window of ten minutes to think
of it. But yeah, but the rockets, yeah yeah, And
they said it was awesome. And they said, I said,
that sounds like the worst thing I could ever see,
and they said. My wife said, it's like twenty folks,
(01:18):
thirty folks all in size.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
It's like mesmerizing. We we've about three years ago. I
don't know if you remember this to night, but we
had a suspicion, well, well, I'm not going to say that.
We took Scarlett there. It was a kind of a
last minute Christmas Day gift and went and saw the
rockets and man like, I kind of was thinking she
would like it. I wouldn't like it, but it's it's amazing.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
I would think you would like it completely right. Christmas
music more artistic than me when I went when I
studied abroad, but after my junior year at Carolina, it
was a complete theater.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Six weeks we went and saw like fourteen.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
I was all into Shakespeare, Homie, I'm easily indoctrinated.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
I was like, man, this is really awesome. It is.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
That was when Rent was world famous. It was ninety nine,
nineteen ninety nine.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
It was cool. It was really cool experience. So I
talked junk. I'm not a big musical guy.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
That's kind of where I d like throwing a dagger
at me. Now you're walking it back a little bit.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
I'm just trying to lay out the fact.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
I appreciate that. Man, it's the holidays. I feel like
we should be talking nice to each other.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
It is we should be generous, golden rule Patrick, that's it. Goodness,
that's gracious. But anyway, so, I mean, me and the
boys had our ups and downs a little bit. But uh,
they cleaned the house yesterday and when I was sitting there,
they were both to sleep on the floor in the
living room, had a fire waiting on my family, the females.
(02:55):
I was like, dang, boys got it going on. I
was proud of Ford, I said, give him a hard
time man, lighting up.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
Good on you.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
So your daughter's and your wife came home and it
was lean, emvaculate.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
Man.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
I bet Remon's like not. I'm sure she was expecting
to come home with like.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
I'll show you.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
I mean, hopefully our guests sitting all in the cozy
his wife doing real cozy Christmas houses. Because Reagan does
uh and and another thing. Until you're there for three
or four days and I'm doing Reagan's half of the job,
I don't really appreciate the strands of Christmas lights from
our beams to you know around my whole house got
(03:36):
a Santa Claus out front. She's got this like six
foot tall Christmas tree that she weaved lights in and out,
and it's hanging on our wall, on our brick wall
at our front doorman.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
Crazy.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
That's good.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
I mean literally I would still have a Halloween box
of candy for the kids.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
There's something about it, though, Man, you're right. I mean
it's having that like having a fire going. You got
all the decoration, maybe like a like a the smell
of a live Christmas tree. Ive, you got on all
these old things that like remember is I had as
a kid, and I know you did as well, and
then you're kind of reliving it as an adult watching
it through children's well.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Reagan has three or four I think they're single mattresses,
and every year, about two weeks before Thanksgiving, she sets
up a night to surprise the kids. They know this
is gonna happen, and she does Christmas Night and she
has all the lights hung that she she spends all
that day decorating some not our full Christmas decoration, and
(04:33):
it's all Christmas covers and cozy blankets and pillows, and
she keeps it out She says she was going to
keep it out through March this year. So who the
It's just like a whole floor lounge and it's pretty cool.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
But she said after Christmas she'll put just some some
non Christmas theme stuff on the blankets.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
Anyway, it's cozy.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Well, it's it's the good it's I tell you, for granted.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
And then I took this for granted when I went
out in the garage when all the family was over Thanksgiving,
there was a stack of mattresses and I was like,
what are these mattresses doing in the garage?
Speaker 3 (05:09):
Was because she took.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Them out for the Thanksgiving day?
Speaker 1 (05:14):
You'd forgotten?
Speaker 2 (05:15):
No, I just didn't know why we had four mattresses
stacked in our garage.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Well, I mean, dude, it's like those little things that
we saw. We you know, it's like the snow light
that you and I have talked about forever. Like with
you remember with your dad and waiting for the snow
to come. You have the snow light in the back
of the house and the floodlights. The flood light, same
with us. We would all kind of like hunk her
down in one back room of our house. And you know,
if we caught it. We saw a fly that was
a damn snowflake back in Atlanta, Georgia. Buddy, I was like,
(05:40):
that wasn't a fly, it was a snowflake.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
Same thing.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
I think we had a little pollution come through some
you know, some leaves were falling.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
Off, maybe some coal ash. I usual turn on to
go to.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
The that'd be on the back and I go to
the front out of the garage and see if I
saw any flakes across that hood.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
Espectually, nobody was having in a bonfire man.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
These these kids too, that like that cems stop sending
email to text messages to their students saying that there
possibly could be an inclement weather day the next day.
Like they've done that twice already this year. In s
car's like, oh dad, go to school tomorrow. Who could's good?
I'm like, it's gonna be forty seven tomorrow, and what
are you doing?
Speaker 3 (06:21):
They're lying to you And.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
She doesn't sleep all night because she doesn't think she
at school.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
I mean, they're canceling school around here for dense fog homes.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
I mean, I saw It's crazy.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
I mean I was paying attention to the to the
news alerts this weekend because it was my job as
in daddy daycare.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
So when I'm when a.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Big come across a football game, I said, I gotta
pay attention.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
Might be a wild man on the loose or something.
I lock my door. But it was dense, fogg just
so you know.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
And I don't I don't think. I think it dissipated
enough by this morning.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Oh man, I thought you were gonna say it was
like an amber alert and you were checking to make
sure one of one of you kids is going to
run and running muck.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Well I only had two because other ones were gone,
so they did pretty good knocks. My five year old,
he you know, he he's been a mama for his
five years. He's I take him to school in kindergarten.
This year, we really bonded. I think we've got some
quality time together. We'll see how it plays out the
next couple of weeks. It could dissipate immediately.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
I won't keep you posted, people listening, We'll put it
this way.
Speaker 4 (07:30):
Week.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
Hey, the girls come in.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
They're all snuggling with Florida knocks and being sweet sisters.
And I'm sitting at the fireplace. It's about twelve thirty
on Sunday night last night, and Uh knocks is coughing
like this dry cough that he has sometime during this
year and he hasn't coughed one time.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
In four days.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
And Rain gooes, Oh, has he been coughing a lot?
I was like, no, he hadn't cought it all. And
he woke up and said, yeah, I have. It's been
bad back now.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
Out of his sleep.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
I was like, dude, he just got.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Why are you turncoat? They sing about that in Canada
and stuff. Yeah, don't be a turncoat man.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
Well, hey, before I forget, I do want to make
sure that we do two uh acknowledgments of of our
our our ruby, our ruby brothers and sisters. Morgan Uh
won the Professional Women of Business Award through the HbA,
which I thought that was really cool. Gave a nice
little shout out. And then our our follically challenged friend,
(08:38):
Dave McGuire is now the incoming president, so it was
pretty cool. You You were the one that put Dave.
You swore Dave in and the rest of the board,
and that was a surprise to Dave. And I didn't
I don't think I told you this or not. I
was able to go, uh to this event because I
had something else that got pushed to another day and
(09:00):
I had Morgan. I'm like, hey, it says it's full
on the website. Like, do you think it's okay if
I come? She's like to make a couple of text messages.
She comes to them off. She said you're good to go.
Everything's good. I'm like, sweep and said. About twenty minutes later,
I get an email from Dave. I wasn't gonna tell him,
mind you. I'm with him for like an hour and
don't ever mention anything. He's talking about getting sworn in
all the stuff. So I'm like playing coy like he's
bragging about Huh. I was asking him about he wasn't
(09:21):
bragging and uh. He gets an email receipt from the
HbA for Patrick mckayzey. He's like, hey, man, what is this?
I was like, God, but I was able to keep
your secrets safe. I didn't should have said you paid
for Morgan's or credit card. It said attendee that with
my name, Okay, Will.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
It was fun.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
It was really good to see all. I think I
was bored President twenty and twelve and thirteen or somewhere
along those times. So I got to rekindle a lot
of old relationships.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
It was fun.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
I just had to make sure I didn't get stuck.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
There for hours and hours because that did used to
happen back twenty twelve.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
Oh like Mike Hartley Key and those guys.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Yes, I was so well, Patrick t Up, our guest
is just so cool. Uh I will say we have
an experience together and then a lot of knowledge of
our families and stuff kind of tie together a little
bit long distance.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
We'll talk about that.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
And Michael your friend to Jeff Naper. Uh I think
that's how we originally he got him on the show,
which is awesome. See we got all kinds of mutual ties.
But Michael van Wingerden metro line of Greenscape Greenhouse Greenhouse
metro line of Greenhouse.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
When we return on the at Home with Roby.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
And don't forget Roeby Services is your one stop source
for all your electrical heating, cooling, plumbing and handyman needs.
Keep it easy and get it all done by one.
Roby servicesnow dot com. That's Roby servicesnow dot com. Welcome
back that Home with Roby. I'm Patrick mcasac from Roby
Commercial in Services along with the Trent Hasten from the
Roby Family of Companies. We are your hosts uh. In
(10:58):
the break, we were talking about how I butchered the
name of your business, which I very much apologized for,
but I think that it's really cool because it sparked
you to kind of explain the story of how it
became named Metrolana.
Speaker 4 (11:11):
Yeah, so my parents immigrated in April of seventy one,
came over to America, and then when they landed New York,
they went to Illinois to work for my dad went
to work for his dad, and then they were there
about a year and they started looking on the map
and you know, they liked to They looked and saw
I had this two interstates across each other in Charlotte.
And when they got here, they found out that Charlotte, so,
(11:32):
you know, being not knowing, you know, it came over
to My mom didn't speak in English when she first
got to America, so she was having to learn that.
So it was pretty funny. So that two kids at
that time or three kids when they moved down here,
five three and one. So when they came over to
America had four and two.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
So and where did you did you mention? Where did
they come?
Speaker 4 (11:51):
They came from Holland, and when they came over here,
it was my mom and dad and they had five
hundred bucks when they landed.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
Oh my gosh, do you do you recall where in Illinois?
Speaker 4 (12:00):
Peory, Illinois?
Speaker 3 (12:01):
Really? Okay, we go through Peoria.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
My wife's mother's families from Mama, Illinois. Okay, forty minutes
north of Peoria. But what made them come back east?
Speaker 4 (12:13):
Just just he's just looking for a good location. I mean,
when when they were growing up, the big dream was
always to make it to America. My dad's dad or
my grandfather came over once and didn't work out, went
back over, came back over again, and so that was
just always a dream. They were all in the flower business.
So basically what you see at the you know, Loew's
(12:33):
Walmart home depot for what you buy for outside your house.
So they were all in that business. My dad was
one of sixteen and then I'm number sixteen of one
hundred and twenty from those sixteen.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
Good crazies.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
Man, that is crazy. How many brothers and sisters do
you have?
Speaker 4 (12:48):
I just have three brothers and two sisters.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
So just have three.
Speaker 4 (12:52):
We're one of the smaller families.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
So you're six in your family.
Speaker 4 (12:56):
Number four in our family was sixteen. Yeah, number four
out of six, and then I'm number sixteen of one
hundred and twenty from uh, from my aunts and uncles.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Do y'all ever get everybody together?
Speaker 3 (13:05):
We used to?
Speaker 4 (13:07):
Uh so? But then uh sure, Yeah it was. We
used to go to Myrtle Beach. My dad and all
of his brothers would come down because most of them
lived up and down the East coast, you know, out
towards Illinois, and uh they they've since moved into other spots.
But yeah, we would rent basically the whole side of
a building, and we used to at the Breakers Hotel.
I don't know if you've familiar with with Myrtle Beach.
(13:27):
We stay there, but then we would have to get
reservations like a month in advance, because you go to
Regi with one hundred people to a restaurant that's uh,
that's a little different at Myrtle Beach.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
Just taking over Van Wingerton's taking.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Over Myrtle Beach. Yeah, I got it right, man, I'm
feeling it. That's awesome. What a what a crazy story.
So you were born in Charlotte day. Yeah, I was
born in Charlotte. Yeah, I'm one of the I'm one
of the and I tell people because I live in Huntersville.
I've lived in hunters all my whole life, so it's, uh.
Speaker 4 (13:55):
You know, you rarely meet people. I think when I
was born there was maybe five hundred people in Huntersville.
Now they're lower forty thousand thousand.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
Well grow.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
When I first got out of college in two thousand
and was working full time in the business, my granddad
would make me go and I'm saying that in Jess
I would go golf, and I was fortunate enough to
go golf with my granddaddy. His name was Glenn Hasten.
With all his church buddies, it was either every Monday
or Tuesday. But his girlfriend was a woman named Arlene
(14:25):
think of her last name. That she was his life
partner after my grandmother passed away. But she is a
distant relative in your family. So he was always talking
about Metrolina Greenhouses with pride and how the business is
so substantial for our region and how it was self
made and how you do business with the big the
(14:46):
big box and make it successful.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
That was just he was in Awe.
Speaker 4 (14:51):
It's been a wild ride. I mean when I started
a full time it was ninety five. I started a
full time and so we were and it's just to
see the growth. I think we've gone up almost twenty
five x since then since I started there, and it
was so I always tell people what we did in
a year of sales in ninety five were do in
three days now in April, so wow, it's great. And
(15:14):
I still wonder who buys all our plants. But we
always tell people we're in a good business because we
specialize in flowers that die so seasonal. If you buy
something that we sell that most of eighty percent of
what we do is annuals if you buy it'll die
in the first year.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
To use ultimate subscription based business.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Yeah, so is this is this region climatically good to
raise those plan we we.
Speaker 4 (15:40):
We deliver stores four hundred miles north south east west,
so got we have ten different regions of weather of
how we look at it. So, but there's certain things
that we can't grow here during certain times a year.
So we'll have a greenhouse in Florida grow say our
ferns and lantana and things like that, and then we
have greenhouses in Michigan that will grow pansies force into
so because we can't grow those here, but we need
(16:02):
them in September October, and we can grow them, they
just won't meet the the you know, the specs that
we want.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
So you said about four hundred miles circumference, yep, all
the way to the coast.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
Huh about the trip.
Speaker 4 (16:15):
To the well, go up to up to New Jersey,
out to western Tennessee and then we deliver about thirteen states.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
I believe, man, What do you think about that?
Speaker 1 (16:23):
And it's like mostly through Big Box is U.
Speaker 4 (16:26):
It's all through Big all of it, through Lows, Walmartin
Home Depot, and Sam's Club.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
I mean all four of those.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
Ye wow, that's that's a pretty good y'all got the
good plants. What's the what's the differentiator? Tell us give
you a secret up.
Speaker 4 (16:42):
A differentiator and like that.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
Why do y'all have so much market share?
Speaker 4 (16:47):
Just hard work? I heard that sounds like it's one
of the things it used to be that you would
when you had a greenhouse. Like back when I started,
it was all regional so like, but these buyers were
having to deal with like six seventy eighty greenhouses. So
we started coming up with the model, and you know,
there was a company in Maryland that was doing it
as well. So we kind of started saying, hey, we'll
(17:08):
go to smaller greenhouses and they're having to grow one
hundred different items and it's hard because you got three
to four acres of greenhouse you grow, you know, all
these different items. Just too many climates. So yeah, and
we would go to this greenhouse, Hey, are you really
good at growing geraniums? Are you really good at growing
new guineas? And then we find out what these greenhouses
are good at, had them grow only that and they
(17:29):
would grow with our upc our pots and everything. Yeah,
and then so then they would just deliver it to us,
and so then we would we combine it with what
we do and then we send it out. So we
we we produced about sixty percent of what we sell
that we produced with the other forty percent is grown
at fifty nine other greenhouses up and down the East coast.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
Sixty percent of your total revenue is grown in Huntersville.
Speaker 4 (17:52):
Huntersville in York, South Carolina. We bought a those a
for those who've been around a long time, there was
a greenhouse there called Stacey's Greenhouse, So we bought s
Acy's Greenhouse in twenty fourteen, and that was so we
could get into the perennial market. So that's when we
started doing perennials and then then net work because now
we can shift to annuals and to perennials. And you know,
so at Walmart it works really neat. We supply everything
(18:13):
that's in the garden department at Walmart and it works
better for them. So instead of having delivery trucks a day,
now they get one truck. And it's also more efficient
because we went from having ten to fifteen stops on
a truck to now we have four to six. So
just a carbon footprint and everything was very big. When
they were looking at that.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
Man, that is that's a that's fascinating one. And so
I mean, I would imagine was it Low's It kind
of how it got caught you because they were around
the same time. Their trajectory took off at around the
same time. It sounds like you all took off. Yep,
that is that sort of how you got so good
at this.
Speaker 4 (18:47):
Yeah, we met Low's. I was taking a gap year
from a college my first year and then we met
Lows and then some I'm a twenty ninth gap year,
so I never went. I think when I was dating
my now wife, I went to college with her one
day just so I could see what it was like.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
So you're not missing anything, buddy, Nay the type just
trying to fix this eel, don't worry about I mean, and.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
I grew up in Atlanta in like the home Depot craze,
I mean early to you that happ let's call it
the nineties, really late late eighties, early nineties. I mean,
I mean you guys jumped right on top of that
bandwagon just rode it.
Speaker 4 (19:26):
Yeah, Loads and Loa's and Home Debil. Like I said,
Lo's is our biggest customer, but we do we do
service both of them and so but yeah, when we
got with as Low's, grew our greenhouse crew. I mean
that was definitely what propelled us to where we're at today.
You know that was a big catalyst of it.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
What a great business lesson, Trent. I mean, if you
take care of your great clients and treat them super
super well and you grow where they grow.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Yeah, I mean, yes, I was talking about. Fortunately, our
projected growth in our business. And that means all of
our buys, whether it be insurance or you know, petro fuel,
if we got more trucks. Uh, it's like, don't telling
(20:09):
one of our service providers, like, don't take your eye
off the ball. If we grow, this is a whole
new business for you. And it's the easiest barrier of entry.
You already already know everybody. And uh so I think
that's great. I got I want one question. What was
your dad's was to open a greenhouse?
Speaker 3 (20:28):
Was his dream?
Speaker 4 (20:29):
His dream was to move to come to America, become American,
which he became a citizen, and that was he always
said that was the greatest day of his life, that
the day he became a citizen. So for us growing up,
July fourth was like the biggest holiday because it's like,
you know, that was that was he was so proud.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
For those are in the back. So that is wonderful.
Speaker 4 (20:49):
Yeah. So his dream was to become a ten acre
greenhouse and do like you know, do a million dollars
of sales. And when we bought the business from him
and tooth out from him and a mom in two
thousand and six, we added twelve acres of Greenhouse that year,
so it was like kind of cool that the year
we bought it, we expanded by what his dream was.
So and now we're I think in Huntersville. We're about
(21:11):
two hundred and ten acres under roof for about little
over nine million square.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Feet a million square feet. If he did Greenhouse, you
got to come check this place out.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
Man, crazy, I've, like I said, I've kind of idolized
it in theory. And then, uh, a couple of years
ago we were I was in Taylor Ride and we
ended up at the same place together and I was like,
oh my gosh, you're from North Charlotte Hundredsville and lol,
so we I think we I think we bonded pretty quickly.
(21:41):
And then Jeff naper One of thought thought we are
the same person, are very similar, so he's wanted wanted
us to get do with the show together again. I
was like, I think I got the right guy, like
ninety eight point five percent sure and sure enough. So
what was your job when you were a teenager? Grewrolling
up into business?
Speaker 4 (22:02):
So teenager once I turned fifteen, that's when our dad,
let's have our first crew. So I'd get I would
get my buddies from school and say, hey, if hyboy
wants a summer job, would come out there. So the first,
the first job he ever made me do. Once I
had a crew, we had about two hundred acres of
pastures for cows and horses stuff. He made us go
out there and dig every thorn bush out of the
(22:23):
entire thing. It took us like four weeks and it
was miserable, but he was just teaching a lesson. Then
after that, the peat moss that we get comes in
from Canada, and back then they used to come in
like forty pound bills and we'd have to just stack them,
like build steps out of them and stack them probably
about forty high. So we unloaded three trucks a day.
And then, I mean it was unbelievable. Like Jack, oh,
(22:45):
I was not like it was funny because I did
that when I was fifteen, so I was going from
ninth to tenth grade. And when I went out for
the basketball team my tenth grade year, I'd never dunked
a basketball before. But from carrying all that, really the
whole summer I was able to stack stuff. I was
I was able to jump, but also being six five
and one hundred and fifty five pounds back then on, Uh.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
Get off the ground.
Speaker 4 (23:06):
It's pretty easy to get off the ground.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
So that's cool.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
Uh So were you a good basketball player? I don't
know this.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
I held on.
Speaker 4 (23:15):
Also, I was, okay, you still play no three knee surgeries,
and I'm uh, I'm done. You couldn't pay me to
play basketball. And again, I like golfing.
Speaker 3 (23:24):
I have heard, I have heard what you got pastorate.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
Nothing. So you know, you decided not to go to college.
Uh was it kind of because you got a taste
of the business and you're like, man, I could do this.
Speaker 4 (23:36):
Uh yes, and yes, I was going to go run
track and uh try to play basketball at NC State
and then it was just really good.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (23:47):
I just uh, I didn't like school, so I'd rather learn, like,
you know, in the business. So and didn't like my
mom and dad. Neither one of them. Uh, they neither
of them finished high school. So it's sort of like
it like my brother, my first brother, so he went
to college for six weeks and then quit after six weeks.
Then my second brother, he did enough college for all
of us because he went to you know, got his
four year degree, then went and got his mbah. Yeah,
(24:10):
my two sisters both went to college. My younger brother
and I we didn't. Uh, we never made it.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
How many of y'all business, that's the same question.
Speaker 4 (24:17):
The three brothers and I we run the day to
day operations of the business. And then my my one
sister was a teacher here in town. And my other
sister worked at the business until she had four kids.
And then ye, she's not working there anymore.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
But the kids call a business from your mom and dad.
Speaker 3 (24:33):
Yep. Wow, what a story.
Speaker 4 (24:35):
And then my oldest brother, he has two sons working
there now. And then my young my older son just
graduated from n C State last year and he's working
full time.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
Comes full circle, right, that's cool that my dad did
not want me. I went to Chapel Hill and he
was so proud. But from age fourteen, every day I
didn't have school, I was run. I worked in the field,
and he knew if I got too much of a
taste of money or break it not in college, I
(25:03):
would have jumped ship because I mean he had created.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
The the the animal that was we my.
Speaker 4 (25:10):
Brothers and know what we always tell people is that
our parents gave us tools and then we build a machine,
you know. And the only thing that that I hate
that my dad wasn't able to see it come to
all the fruition, because I think he would just be
blown away from what, like, you know, from when we
bought it from him in six And I think we're
about five times as big since then.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
So how long ago did he pass away?
Speaker 4 (25:33):
None?
Speaker 3 (25:34):
Nine?
Speaker 4 (25:35):
My mom still lives at the business, and every day
at nine thirty we have breakfast with her.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
Really five years, are you serious?
Speaker 3 (25:42):
Yep?
Speaker 4 (25:43):
So she loves on property, so and if we're not
gonna be that we had we had to give her
a schedule every Sunday night. So I'm sitting there at night,
my wife goes, I'll tell her. I got to email
my mom real quick to let her know my schedule.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
So you have like a full farm breakfast at nine thirty.
Speaker 4 (25:59):
We're used to, but now we've all gotten older awl
and weird diets trying not to get too big. So yes,
which older. She had to cut out the cakes and
the breakfast and everything. So on our birthday she still
she'll still make pancakes on our birthdays.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
Like that's like it's not an option. So that is wonderful.
More power to your mother. That is awesome. Your dad's watching,
no question, right, Yeah, yeah, I mean how cool is that?
And I just popped in my mind as small as
the world is. I was the Central and Western uh
chapter chair for Make a Wish Foundation about ten years ago,
(26:33):
and uh we were calling downers and thanking them and
I called you and talked to you, and I think
a little bit of that that was before we had
met and tell you.
Speaker 4 (26:42):
Right, okay, yeah, yeah, we did. My wife and I
did a lot with Make a Wish and we built
a greenhouse for a Jason here, so that was my
kids helped me with that, and it was it was
an awesome experience. That's actually how mad, Jeff.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
That makes sense.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (26:56):
Hap We built them a greenhouse and uh then we
brought a bag tomatoes and sold the bag of tomatoes.
Have to make a wishball and then sold a bag
of tomatoes and tour the greenhouse.
Speaker 3 (27:06):
So that is really cool.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
If you've ever like people listening, if you, I mean,
being part of a wish is like one of the
coolest experiences ever I've only done. I know you've done
a bunch of them, Trent. I mean how cool is
that to do that. I've been a part of one
as well, and it's just like something I'll never ever
ever forget.
Speaker 4 (27:22):
And then we brought we brought Jason to the greenhouse
when we told him he was to get one, and
so all of our employees lined up and all that.
So it was it was it was very very cool
on the whole day that day.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
Yeah, I mean, man, and you know when you have
to call these uh these donors and tell them thank you.
It's an easy phone call, but in your busy day,
it's kind of the thing that gets pushed back.
Speaker 3 (27:46):
You're like, man, I don't know these folks.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
And and we had a I mean we talked for
like two or three minutes, like, hey, man, if I
ever I think I told you my dad's girlfriend's story quickly.
Speaker 3 (27:55):
And but thank you for that.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
Uh yeah, we have a I've been able to grant
some wishes over time.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
When I was on the board, it was a it
was a board requirement. Uh.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
And then Roby's helped a lot of wishes and stuff.
But on Piper's basketball team at Gaston Christian, I walked
into a game sitting in the crowd, and it's like
the first game of the year. So I don't know
any of these other parents. And a lady turned around
and said, you're the make a wish guy, right, And I.
Speaker 3 (28:24):
Was like, uh yeah, I didn't know where it was going.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
And they said, you granted not her our older daughters
in college and you granted her wish and came to
our house.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
And I was like, whoa, isn't that crazy? That is
really small world.
Speaker 4 (28:39):
Yeah it is. And the wish that we did. We
still like exchange Christmas cards with jas mom, Like we
send him one, they send us one, so like, you know,
it seemed that he like he's in college now and everything.
So it's just it's really cool. My kids keep up
with it on Facebook.
Speaker 3 (28:53):
And that is what it's about.
Speaker 4 (28:54):
Oh yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
How many kids do you have?
Speaker 4 (28:57):
Two twenty two and nineteen.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
They working in the business.
Speaker 4 (29:01):
The oldest one is. The younger one is uh, he's
a high point getting a game design and computer science
and that he will not uh he won't. He won't
work at the grounds much because he wants to do
the game design stuff.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
What a hidden gym, I mean, unbelieve unbelievable.
Speaker 4 (29:15):
When he said he wanted to go there. I was like,
my wife and I had a list, and you can
tell us where you want to go when we get
to mark one off, and I like put that on
and I was like nope, And he says, Dad, He's like,
can you just go look there? I was like, I
was like, you need to go a little bit further away. Whatever,
And then we went to a campus tour and we
didn't go anywhere else that It is an unbelievable great
college that's a life skills university. And he was a
(29:38):
little bit of introvert. And now I mean he's that
they fixed all that and really it's yes, unbelievable.
Speaker 3 (29:44):
It was ran like a business.
Speaker 4 (29:46):
Yeah. Like I told my son and said, you still
need to meet him and set up a dinner. So
that's that's on his to do that's on his to
do list. He's got two and a half years left
to reach.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
I think if somebody figures out the right way to
bone up and get to him, he'll go to dinner
with him, just like us.
Speaker 3 (30:03):
Right.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
I always say old tongue likes to wag. You just
got to have the courage to go after it tactfully
read good to great, right, And that was your tests
of people old tongue likes the wag is richest man.
But that was your test with young people that would
oh yeah, yeah. I mean, if you want to have
my time, read this book and then call me.
Speaker 3 (30:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
I mean, you know how few few aspiring folks call me.
Speaker 3 (30:27):
And asked me to go to dinner.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
I say, you read this book, I'll refresh and I'll
buy you dinner, and well, I'll give you another book.
Nice if some got I mean, I don't guess I'm successful.
But if some business owner told me that when I
was young, I'd have read every day on the book
I could have got my hands on. So uh well, Michael,
I mean, what you have any any theories on how
(30:51):
you live business and family that that you want to
encapsulate on a life lesson you can leave with our audience.
Speaker 4 (30:59):
I think 's say, I work with out three brothers.
We get along great. We're fortunate that we each run
a different part of the business. But you know, I
think having breakfast every day together does help. But like
we go on vacation together, and I think the big
thing is my brother and we can argue sometimes and fight,
but as soon as it's over, you drop it and
let it go because it's for the greater good of
(31:20):
the business. And at the end of the day, we
know that we have the business's best interest at heart.
And so I think that's you know, sometimes you's got
to drop your ego and you know it's uh and
it's it's okay to fight. You're just pushing each other
to get better as long as you know it's it's
not personal, you know.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
So I think that's one of the things across personal
lines too.
Speaker 4 (31:38):
So, yeah, so we play golf together and we do
stuff and it's like, you know, and my my youngest brother,
as he got into it, he's like, I just can't
believe y'all fault this morning. You're gonna go play golf
this afternoon. It's like, yeah, It's like it's not it's
not like we're fight fighting, we're not calling each other names.
We're just trying to push each other to make the
business better. And I think I attribute that to my
mom and dad. They were always one day they didn't
(31:59):
care if we fault, is that you made up right
away and if you did, and my dad would call
you to his office and he's sitting there it's like
we're gonna sitting here till we figured this out. Yeah,
And I think if people would just do that instead
of letting harbor inside of and that that's always the
way I tell people is like, you know, just like
talk to people and talk to your family, and you
know that's a you know, it's I mean, I love
working with my family. I wouldn't want to do it
any other way.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
Well, Pastor's heard me say this many times. My dad
talked about me and my brother partners. He's four years older.
Our personalities are different, we have different sides of roles
in the business. And he would say, if y'all can't
be fifty to fifty in work every day to get
along and we'll burn the whole dang thing down, it's
not worth having in our mono e mono relationships.
Speaker 3 (32:41):
So it's been great.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
And it's just like having a being a parent, or
having parents or having a spouse. You just got to work.
I saw I like partners. Patrick, my partner, dag on it.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Damn right.
Speaker 3 (32:55):
Good.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
Well, uh well, Michael, thank you for being here. It's
been a blessing. I'm glad Jeff really wants to connect,
always trying to develop other people and help other people.
Jeff Naper, I look forward to playing golf with you. Hopefully,
absolutely we can do that. We get out there and
uh and happy holidays and Merry Christmas to you as well.
(33:17):
So thanks for listening to the At Home with Roby Show.
Thank you to our guest Michael, and uh go do
the Golden rule today. Treat others the way you want
to be treated, carry a smile around on your face.
Speaker 3 (33:31):
Take care,
Welcome to that home with Ruby. This is Patrick mc
isaac from Ruby Commercial and Services along with Trendy Hayson
from the Ruby family of Companies. We are your host
prince setting timers over there, many all organized and efficient.
Put that thing up there. Look at I mean, I.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Just got I just came off of four days, four
days of deady daycare.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
I got the I got the boys in line.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Oh, four days just you all the kids was well.
I was out of town when they left Thursday night.
I was out of town on a quail hunting trip
down at Buchanan Shows. Uh, it's it's apparently quail season.
And my Reagan and the three girls and Kelly Byram
(00:40):
and Kensley byrom Uh her daughter. They went to New
York Thursday night and came back last night at l
like eleven thirty, New York City, New York, New York City.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Mine, did they go to Broadway play where they would?
Speaker 3 (00:56):
And yeah they did.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
And I can't even think I'll think of it in
I got like a window of ten minutes to think
of it. But yeah, but the rockets, yeah yeah, And
they said it was awesome. And they said, I said,
that sounds like the worst thing I could ever see,
and they said. My wife said, it's like twenty folks,
(01:18):
thirty folks all in size.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
It's like mesmerizing. We we've about three years ago. I
don't know if you remember this to night, but we
had a suspicion, well, well, I'm not going to say that.
We took Scarlett there. It was a kind of a
last minute Christmas Day gift and went and saw the
rockets and man like, I kind of was thinking she
would like it. I wouldn't like it, but it's it's amazing.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
I would think you would like it completely right. Christmas
music more artistic than me when I went when I
studied abroad, but after my junior year at Carolina, it
was a complete theater.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Six weeks we went and saw like fourteen.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
I was all into Shakespeare, Homie, I'm easily indoctrinated.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
I was like, man, this is really awesome. It is.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
That was when Rent was world famous. It was ninety nine,
nineteen ninety nine.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
It was cool. It was really cool experience. So I
talked junk. I'm not a big musical guy.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
That's kind of where I d like throwing a dagger
at me. Now you're walking it back a little bit.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
I'm just trying to lay out the fact.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
I appreciate that. Man, it's the holidays. I feel like
we should be talking nice to each other.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
It is we should be generous, golden rule Patrick, that's it. Goodness,
that's gracious. But anyway, so, I mean, me and the
boys had our ups and downs a little bit. But uh,
they cleaned the house yesterday and when I was sitting there,
they were both to sleep on the floor in the
living room, had a fire waiting on my family, the females.
(02:55):
I was like, dang, boys got it going on. I
was proud of Ford, I said, give him a hard
time man, lighting up.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
Good on you.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
So your daughter's and your wife came home and it
was lean, emvaculate.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
Man.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
I bet Remon's like not. I'm sure she was expecting
to come home with like.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
I'll show you.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
I mean, hopefully our guests sitting all in the cozy
his wife doing real cozy Christmas houses. Because Reagan does
uh and and another thing. Until you're there for three
or four days and I'm doing Reagan's half of the job,
I don't really appreciate the strands of Christmas lights from
our beams to you know around my whole house got
(03:36):
a Santa Claus out front. She's got this like six
foot tall Christmas tree that she weaved lights in and out,
and it's hanging on our wall, on our brick wall
at our front doorman.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
Crazy.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
That's good.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
I mean literally I would still have a Halloween box
of candy for the kids.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
There's something about it, though, Man, you're right. I mean
it's having that like having a fire going. You got
all the decoration, maybe like a like a the smell
of a live Christmas tree. Ive, you got on all
these old things that like remember is I had as
a kid, and I know you did as well, and
then you're kind of reliving it as an adult watching
it through children's well.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Reagan has three or four I think they're single mattresses,
and every year, about two weeks before Thanksgiving, she sets
up a night to surprise the kids. They know this
is gonna happen, and she does Christmas Night and she
has all the lights hung that she she spends all
that day decorating some not our full Christmas decoration, and
(04:33):
it's all Christmas covers and cozy blankets and pillows, and
she keeps it out She says she was going to
keep it out through March this year. So who the
It's just like a whole floor lounge and it's pretty cool.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
But she said after Christmas she'll put just some some
non Christmas theme stuff on the blankets.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
Anyway, it's cozy.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Well, it's it's the good it's I tell you, for granted.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
And then I took this for granted when I went
out in the garage when all the family was over Thanksgiving,
there was a stack of mattresses and I was like,
what are these mattresses doing in the garage?
Speaker 3 (05:09):
Was because she took.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Them out for the Thanksgiving day?
Speaker 1 (05:14):
You'd forgotten?
Speaker 2 (05:15):
No, I just didn't know why we had four mattresses
stacked in our garage.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Well, I mean, dude, it's like those little things that
we saw. We you know, it's like the snow light
that you and I have talked about forever. Like with
you remember with your dad and waiting for the snow
to come. You have the snow light in the back
of the house and the floodlights. The flood light, same
with us. We would all kind of like hunk her
down in one back room of our house. And you know,
if we caught it. We saw a fly that was
a damn snowflake back in Atlanta, Georgia. Buddy, I was like,
(05:40):
that wasn't a fly, it was a snowflake.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
Same thing.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
I think we had a little pollution come through some
you know, some leaves were falling.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
Off, maybe some coal ash. I usual turn on to
go to.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
The that'd be on the back and I go to
the front out of the garage and see if I
saw any flakes across that hood.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
Espectually, nobody was having in a bonfire man.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
These these kids too, that like that cems stop sending
email to text messages to their students saying that there
possibly could be an inclement weather day the next day.
Like they've done that twice already this year. In s
car's like, oh dad, go to school tomorrow. Who could's good?
I'm like, it's gonna be forty seven tomorrow, and what
are you doing?
Speaker 3 (06:21):
They're lying to you And.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
She doesn't sleep all night because she doesn't think she
at school.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
I mean, they're canceling school around here for dense fog homes.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
I mean, I saw It's crazy.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
I mean I was paying attention to the to the
news alerts this weekend because it was my job as
in daddy daycare.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
So when I'm when a.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Big come across a football game, I said, I gotta
pay attention.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
Might be a wild man on the loose or something.
I lock my door. But it was dense, fogg just
so you know.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
And I don't I don't think. I think it dissipated
enough by this morning.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Oh man, I thought you were gonna say it was
like an amber alert and you were checking to make
sure one of one of you kids is going to
run and running muck.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Well I only had two because other ones were gone,
so they did pretty good knocks. My five year old,
he you know, he he's been a mama for his
five years. He's I take him to school in kindergarten.
This year, we really bonded. I think we've got some
quality time together. We'll see how it plays out the
next couple of weeks. It could dissipate immediately.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
I won't keep you posted, people listening, We'll put it
this way.
Speaker 4 (07:30):
Week.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
Hey, the girls come in.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
They're all snuggling with Florida knocks and being sweet sisters.
And I'm sitting at the fireplace. It's about twelve thirty
on Sunday night last night, and Uh knocks is coughing
like this dry cough that he has sometime during this
year and he hasn't coughed one time.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
In four days.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
And Rain gooes, Oh, has he been coughing a lot?
I was like, no, he hadn't cought it all. And
he woke up and said, yeah, I have. It's been
bad back now.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
Out of his sleep.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
I was like, dude, he just got.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Why are you turncoat? They sing about that in Canada
and stuff. Yeah, don't be a turncoat man.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
Well, hey, before I forget, I do want to make
sure that we do two uh acknowledgments of of our
our our ruby, our ruby brothers and sisters. Morgan Uh
won the Professional Women of Business Award through the HbA,
which I thought that was really cool. Gave a nice
little shout out. And then our our follically challenged friend,
(08:38):
Dave McGuire is now the incoming president, so it was
pretty cool. You You were the one that put Dave.
You swore Dave in and the rest of the board,
and that was a surprise to Dave. And I didn't
I don't think I told you this or not. I
was able to go, uh to this event because I
had something else that got pushed to another day and
(09:00):
I had Morgan. I'm like, hey, it says it's full
on the website. Like, do you think it's okay if
I come? She's like to make a couple of text messages.
She comes to them off. She said you're good to go.
Everything's good. I'm like, sweep and said. About twenty minutes later,
I get an email from Dave. I wasn't gonna tell him,
mind you. I'm with him for like an hour and
don't ever mention anything. He's talking about getting sworn in
all the stuff. So I'm like playing coy like he's
bragging about Huh. I was asking him about he wasn't
(09:21):
bragging and uh. He gets an email receipt from the
HbA for Patrick mckayzey. He's like, hey, man, what is this?
I was like, God, but I was able to keep
your secrets safe. I didn't should have said you paid
for Morgan's or credit card. It said attendee that with
my name, Okay, Will.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
It was fun.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
It was really good to see all. I think I
was bored President twenty and twelve and thirteen or somewhere
along those times. So I got to rekindle a lot
of old relationships.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
It was fun.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
I just had to make sure I didn't get stuck.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
There for hours and hours because that did used to
happen back twenty twelve.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
Oh like Mike Hartley Key and those guys.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Yes, I was so well, Patrick t Up, our guest
is just so cool. Uh I will say we have
an experience together and then a lot of knowledge of
our families and stuff kind of tie together a little
bit long distance.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
We'll talk about that.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
And Michael your friend to Jeff Naper. Uh I think
that's how we originally he got him on the show,
which is awesome. See we got all kinds of mutual ties.
But Michael van Wingerden metro line of Greenscape Greenhouse Greenhouse
metro line of Greenhouse.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
When we return on the at Home with Roby.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
And don't forget Roeby Services is your one stop source
for all your electrical heating, cooling, plumbing and handyman needs.
Keep it easy and get it all done by one.
Roby servicesnow dot com. That's Roby servicesnow dot com. Welcome
back that Home with Roby. I'm Patrick mcasac from Roby
Commercial in Services along with the Trent Hasten from the
Roby Family of Companies. We are your hosts uh. In
(10:58):
the break, we were talking about how I butchered the
name of your business, which I very much apologized for,
but I think that it's really cool because it sparked
you to kind of explain the story of how it
became named Metrolana.
Speaker 4 (11:11):
Yeah, so my parents immigrated in April of seventy one,
came over to America, and then when they landed New York,
they went to Illinois to work for my dad went
to work for his dad, and then they were there
about a year and they started looking on the map
and you know, they liked to They looked and saw
I had this two interstates across each other in Charlotte.
And when they got here, they found out that Charlotte, so,
(11:32):
you know, being not knowing, you know, it came over
to My mom didn't speak in English when she first
got to America, so she was having to learn that.
So it was pretty funny. So that two kids at
that time or three kids when they moved down here,
five three and one. So when they came over to
America had four and two.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
So and where did you did you mention? Where did
they come?
Speaker 4 (11:51):
They came from Holland, and when they came over here,
it was my mom and dad and they had five
hundred bucks when they landed.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
Oh my gosh, do you do you recall where in Illinois?
Speaker 4 (12:00):
Peory, Illinois?
Speaker 3 (12:01):
Really? Okay, we go through Peoria.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
My wife's mother's families from Mama, Illinois. Okay, forty minutes
north of Peoria. But what made them come back east?
Speaker 4 (12:13):
Just just he's just looking for a good location. I mean,
when when they were growing up, the big dream was
always to make it to America. My dad's dad or
my grandfather came over once and didn't work out, went
back over, came back over again, and so that was
just always a dream. They were all in the flower business.
So basically what you see at the you know, Loew's
(12:33):
Walmart home depot for what you buy for outside your house.
So they were all in that business. My dad was
one of sixteen and then I'm number sixteen of one
hundred and twenty from those sixteen.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
Good crazies.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
Man, that is crazy. How many brothers and sisters do
you have?
Speaker 4 (12:48):
I just have three brothers and two sisters.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
So just have three.
Speaker 4 (12:52):
We're one of the smaller families.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
So you're six in your family.
Speaker 4 (12:56):
Number four in our family was sixteen. Yeah, number four
out of six, and then I'm number sixteen of one
hundred and twenty from uh, from my aunts and uncles.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Do y'all ever get everybody together?
Speaker 3 (13:05):
We used to?
Speaker 4 (13:07):
Uh so? But then uh sure, Yeah it was. We
used to go to Myrtle Beach. My dad and all
of his brothers would come down because most of them
lived up and down the East coast, you know, out
towards Illinois, and uh they they've since moved into other spots.
But yeah, we would rent basically the whole side of
a building, and we used to at the Breakers Hotel.
I don't know if you've familiar with with Myrtle Beach.
(13:27):
We stay there, but then we would have to get
reservations like a month in advance, because you go to
Regi with one hundred people to a restaurant that's uh,
that's a little different at Myrtle Beach.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
Just taking over Van Wingerton's taking.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Over Myrtle Beach. Yeah, I got it right, man, I'm
feeling it. That's awesome. What a what a crazy story.
So you were born in Charlotte day. Yeah, I was
born in Charlotte. Yeah, I'm one of the I'm one
of the and I tell people because I live in Huntersville.
I've lived in hunters all my whole life, so it's, uh.
Speaker 4 (13:55):
You know, you rarely meet people. I think when I
was born there was maybe five hundred people in Huntersville.
Now they're lower forty thousand thousand.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
Well grow.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
When I first got out of college in two thousand
and was working full time in the business, my granddad
would make me go and I'm saying that in Jess
I would go golf, and I was fortunate enough to
go golf with my granddaddy. His name was Glenn Hasten.
With all his church buddies, it was either every Monday
or Tuesday. But his girlfriend was a woman named Arlene
(14:25):
think of her last name. That she was his life
partner after my grandmother passed away. But she is a
distant relative in your family. So he was always talking
about Metrolina Greenhouses with pride and how the business is
so substantial for our region and how it was self
made and how you do business with the big the
(14:46):
big box and make it successful.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
That was just he was in Awe.
Speaker 4 (14:51):
It's been a wild ride. I mean when I started
a full time it was ninety five. I started a
full time and so we were and it's just to
see the growth. I think we've gone up almost twenty
five x since then since I started there, and it
was so I always tell people what we did in
a year of sales in ninety five were do in
three days now in April, so wow, it's great. And
(15:14):
I still wonder who buys all our plants. But we
always tell people we're in a good business because we
specialize in flowers that die so seasonal. If you buy
something that we sell that most of eighty percent of
what we do is annuals if you buy it'll die
in the first year.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
To use ultimate subscription based business.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Yeah, so is this is this region climatically good to
raise those plan we we.
Speaker 4 (15:40):
We deliver stores four hundred miles north south east west,
so got we have ten different regions of weather of
how we look at it. So, but there's certain things
that we can't grow here during certain times a year.
So we'll have a greenhouse in Florida grow say our
ferns and lantana and things like that, and then we
have greenhouses in Michigan that will grow pansies force into
so because we can't grow those here, but we need
(16:02):
them in September October, and we can grow them, they
just won't meet the the you know, the specs that
we want.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
So you said about four hundred miles circumference, yep, all
the way to the coast.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
Huh about the trip.
Speaker 4 (16:15):
To the well, go up to up to New Jersey,
out to western Tennessee and then we deliver about thirteen states.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
I believe, man, What do you think about that?
Speaker 1 (16:23):
And it's like mostly through Big Box is U.
Speaker 4 (16:26):
It's all through Big all of it, through Lows, Walmartin
Home Depot, and Sam's Club.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
I mean all four of those.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
Ye wow, that's that's a pretty good y'all got the
good plants. What's the what's the differentiator? Tell us give
you a secret up.
Speaker 4 (16:42):
A differentiator and like that.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
Why do y'all have so much market share?
Speaker 4 (16:47):
Just hard work? I heard that sounds like it's one
of the things it used to be that you would
when you had a greenhouse. Like back when I started,
it was all regional so like, but these buyers were
having to deal with like six seventy eighty greenhouses. So
we started coming up with the model, and you know,
there was a company in Maryland that was doing it
as well. So we kind of started saying, hey, we'll
(17:08):
go to smaller greenhouses and they're having to grow one
hundred different items and it's hard because you got three
to four acres of greenhouse you grow, you know, all
these different items. Just too many climates. So yeah, and
we would go to this greenhouse, Hey, are you really
good at growing geraniums? Are you really good at growing
new guineas? And then we find out what these greenhouses
are good at, had them grow only that and they
(17:29):
would grow with our upc our pots and everything. Yeah,
and then so then they would just deliver it to us,
and so then we would we combine it with what
we do and then we send it out. So we
we we produced about sixty percent of what we sell
that we produced with the other forty percent is grown
at fifty nine other greenhouses up and down the East coast.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
Sixty percent of your total revenue is grown in Huntersville.
Speaker 4 (17:52):
Huntersville in York, South Carolina. We bought a those a
for those who've been around a long time, there was
a greenhouse there called Stacey's Greenhouse, So we bought s
Acy's Greenhouse in twenty fourteen, and that was so we
could get into the perennial market. So that's when we
started doing perennials and then then net work because now
we can shift to annuals and to perennials. And you know,
so at Walmart it works really neat. We supply everything
(18:13):
that's in the garden department at Walmart and it works
better for them. So instead of having delivery trucks a day,
now they get one truck. And it's also more efficient
because we went from having ten to fifteen stops on
a truck to now we have four to six. So
just a carbon footprint and everything was very big. When
they were looking at that.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
Man, that is that's a that's fascinating one. And so
I mean, I would imagine was it Low's It kind
of how it got caught you because they were around
the same time. Their trajectory took off at around the
same time. It sounds like you all took off. Yep,
that is that sort of how you got so good
at this.
Speaker 4 (18:47):
Yeah, we met Low's. I was taking a gap year
from a college my first year and then we met
Lows and then some I'm a twenty ninth gap year,
so I never went. I think when I was dating
my now wife, I went to college with her one
day just so I could see what it was like.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
So you're not missing anything, buddy, Nay the type just
trying to fix this eel, don't worry about I mean, and.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
I grew up in Atlanta in like the home Depot craze,
I mean early to you that happ let's call it
the nineties, really late late eighties, early nineties. I mean,
I mean you guys jumped right on top of that
bandwagon just rode it.
Speaker 4 (19:26):
Yeah, Loads and Loa's and Home Debil. Like I said,
Lo's is our biggest customer, but we do we do
service both of them and so but yeah, when we
got with as Low's, grew our greenhouse crew. I mean
that was definitely what propelled us to where we're at today.
You know that was a big catalyst of it.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
What a great business lesson, Trent. I mean, if you
take care of your great clients and treat them super
super well and you grow where they grow.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Yeah, I mean, yes, I was talking about. Fortunately, our
projected growth in our business. And that means all of
our buys, whether it be insurance or you know, petro fuel,
if we got more trucks. Uh, it's like, don't telling
(20:09):
one of our service providers, like, don't take your eye
off the ball. If we grow, this is a whole
new business for you. And it's the easiest barrier of entry.
You already already know everybody. And uh so I think
that's great. I got I want one question. What was
your dad's was to open a greenhouse?
Speaker 3 (20:28):
Was his dream?
Speaker 4 (20:29):
His dream was to move to come to America, become American,
which he became a citizen, and that was he always
said that was the greatest day of his life, that
the day he became a citizen. So for us growing up,
July fourth was like the biggest holiday because it's like,
you know, that was that was he was so proud.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
For those are in the back. So that is wonderful.
Speaker 4 (20:49):
Yeah. So his dream was to become a ten acre
greenhouse and do like you know, do a million dollars
of sales. And when we bought the business from him
and tooth out from him and a mom in two
thousand and six, we added twelve acres of Greenhouse that year,
so it was like kind of cool that the year
we bought it, we expanded by what his dream was.
So and now we're I think in Huntersville. We're about
(21:11):
two hundred and ten acres under roof for about little
over nine million square.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Feet a million square feet. If he did Greenhouse, you
got to come check this place out.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
Man, crazy, I've, like I said, I've kind of idolized
it in theory. And then, uh, a couple of years
ago we were I was in Taylor Ride and we
ended up at the same place together and I was like,
oh my gosh, you're from North Charlotte Hundredsville and lol,
so we I think we I think we bonded pretty quickly.
(21:41):
And then Jeff naper One of thought thought we are
the same person, are very similar, so he's wanted wanted
us to get do with the show together again. I
was like, I think I got the right guy, like
ninety eight point five percent sure and sure enough. So
what was your job when you were a teenager? Grewrolling
up into business?
Speaker 4 (22:02):
So teenager once I turned fifteen, that's when our dad,
let's have our first crew. So I'd get I would
get my buddies from school and say, hey, if hyboy
wants a summer job, would come out there. So the first,
the first job he ever made me do. Once I
had a crew, we had about two hundred acres of
pastures for cows and horses stuff. He made us go
out there and dig every thorn bush out of the
(22:23):
entire thing. It took us like four weeks and it
was miserable, but he was just teaching a lesson. Then
after that, the peat moss that we get comes in
from Canada, and back then they used to come in
like forty pound bills and we'd have to just stack them,
like build steps out of them and stack them probably
about forty high. So we unloaded three trucks a day.
And then, I mean it was unbelievable. Like Jack, oh,
(22:45):
I was not like it was funny because I did
that when I was fifteen, so I was going from
ninth to tenth grade. And when I went out for
the basketball team my tenth grade year, I'd never dunked
a basketball before. But from carrying all that, really the
whole summer I was able to stack stuff. I was
I was able to jump, but also being six five
and one hundred and fifty five pounds back then on, Uh.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
Get off the ground.
Speaker 4 (23:06):
It's pretty easy to get off the ground.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
So that's cool.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
Uh So were you a good basketball player? I don't
know this.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
I held on.
Speaker 4 (23:15):
Also, I was, okay, you still play no three knee surgeries,
and I'm uh, I'm done. You couldn't pay me to
play basketball. And again, I like golfing.
Speaker 3 (23:24):
I have heard, I have heard what you got pastorate.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
Nothing. So you know, you decided not to go to college.
Uh was it kind of because you got a taste
of the business and you're like, man, I could do this.
Speaker 4 (23:36):
Uh yes, and yes, I was going to go run
track and uh try to play basketball at NC State
and then it was just really good.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (23:47):
I just uh, I didn't like school, so I'd rather learn, like,
you know, in the business. So and didn't like my
mom and dad. Neither one of them. Uh, they neither
of them finished high school. So it's sort of like
it like my brother, my first brother, so he went
to college for six weeks and then quit after six weeks.
Then my second brother, he did enough college for all
of us because he went to you know, got his
four year degree, then went and got his mbah. Yeah,
(24:10):
my two sisters both went to college. My younger brother
and I we didn't. Uh, we never made it.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
How many of y'all business, that's the same question.
Speaker 4 (24:17):
The three brothers and I we run the day to
day operations of the business. And then my my one
sister was a teacher here in town. And my other
sister worked at the business until she had four kids.
And then ye, she's not working there anymore.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
But the kids call a business from your mom and dad.
Speaker 3 (24:33):
Yep. Wow, what a story.
Speaker 4 (24:35):
And then my oldest brother, he has two sons working
there now. And then my young my older son just
graduated from n C State last year and he's working
full time.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
Comes full circle, right, that's cool that my dad did
not want me. I went to Chapel Hill and he
was so proud. But from age fourteen, every day I
didn't have school, I was run. I worked in the field,
and he knew if I got too much of a
taste of money or break it not in college, I
(25:03):
would have jumped ship because I mean he had created.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
The the the animal that was we my.
Speaker 4 (25:10):
Brothers and know what we always tell people is that
our parents gave us tools and then we build a machine,
you know. And the only thing that that I hate
that my dad wasn't able to see it come to
all the fruition, because I think he would just be
blown away from what, like, you know, from when we
bought it from him in six And I think we're
about five times as big since then.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
So how long ago did he pass away?
Speaker 4 (25:33):
None?
Speaker 3 (25:34):
Nine?
Speaker 4 (25:35):
My mom still lives at the business, and every day
at nine thirty we have breakfast with her.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
Really five years, are you serious?
Speaker 3 (25:42):
Yep?
Speaker 4 (25:43):
So she loves on property, so and if we're not
gonna be that we had we had to give her
a schedule every Sunday night. So I'm sitting there at night,
my wife goes, I'll tell her. I got to email
my mom real quick to let her know my schedule.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
So you have like a full farm breakfast at nine thirty.
Speaker 4 (25:59):
We're used to, but now we've all gotten older awl
and weird diets trying not to get too big. So yes,
which older. She had to cut out the cakes and
the breakfast and everything. So on our birthday she still
she'll still make pancakes on our birthdays.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
Like that's like it's not an option. So that is wonderful.
More power to your mother. That is awesome. Your dad's watching,
no question, right, Yeah, yeah, I mean how cool is that?
And I just popped in my mind as small as
the world is. I was the Central and Western uh
chapter chair for Make a Wish Foundation about ten years ago,
(26:33):
and uh we were calling downers and thanking them and
I called you and talked to you, and I think
a little bit of that that was before we had
met and tell you.
Speaker 4 (26:42):
Right, okay, yeah, yeah, we did. My wife and I
did a lot with Make a Wish and we built
a greenhouse for a Jason here, so that was my
kids helped me with that, and it was it was
an awesome experience. That's actually how mad, Jeff.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
That makes sense.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (26:56):
Hap We built them a greenhouse and uh then we
brought a bag tomatoes and sold the bag of tomatoes.
Have to make a wishball and then sold a bag
of tomatoes and tour the greenhouse.
Speaker 3 (27:06):
So that is really cool.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
If you've ever like people listening, if you, I mean,
being part of a wish is like one of the
coolest experiences ever I've only done. I know you've done
a bunch of them, Trent. I mean how cool is
that to do that. I've been a part of one
as well, and it's just like something I'll never ever
ever forget.
Speaker 4 (27:22):
And then we brought we brought Jason to the greenhouse
when we told him he was to get one, and
so all of our employees lined up and all that.
So it was it was it was very very cool
on the whole day that day.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
Yeah, I mean, man, and you know when you have
to call these uh these donors and tell them thank you.
It's an easy phone call, but in your busy day,
it's kind of the thing that gets pushed back.
Speaker 3 (27:46):
You're like, man, I don't know these folks.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
And and we had a I mean we talked for
like two or three minutes, like, hey, man, if I
ever I think I told you my dad's girlfriend's story quickly.
Speaker 3 (27:55):
And but thank you for that.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
Uh yeah, we have a I've been able to grant
some wishes over time.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
When I was on the board, it was a it
was a board requirement. Uh.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
And then Roby's helped a lot of wishes and stuff.
But on Piper's basketball team at Gaston Christian, I walked
into a game sitting in the crowd, and it's like
the first game of the year. So I don't know
any of these other parents. And a lady turned around
and said, you're the make a wish guy, right, And I.
Speaker 3 (28:24):
Was like, uh yeah, I didn't know where it was going.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
And they said, you granted not her our older daughters
in college and you granted her wish and came to
our house.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
And I was like, whoa, isn't that crazy? That is
really small world.
Speaker 4 (28:39):
Yeah it is. And the wish that we did. We
still like exchange Christmas cards with jas mom, Like we
send him one, they send us one, so like, you know,
it seemed that he like he's in college now and everything.
So it's just it's really cool. My kids keep up
with it on Facebook.
Speaker 3 (28:53):
And that is what it's about.
Speaker 4 (28:54):
Oh yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
How many kids do you have?
Speaker 4 (28:57):
Two twenty two and nineteen.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
They working in the business.
Speaker 4 (29:01):
The oldest one is. The younger one is uh, he's
a high point getting a game design and computer science
and that he will not uh he won't. He won't
work at the grounds much because he wants to do
the game design stuff.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
What a hidden gym, I mean, unbelieve unbelievable.
Speaker 4 (29:15):
When he said he wanted to go there. I was like,
my wife and I had a list, and you can
tell us where you want to go when we get
to mark one off, and I like put that on
and I was like nope, And he says, Dad, He's like,
can you just go look there? I was like, I
was like, you need to go a little bit further away. Whatever,
And then we went to a campus tour and we
didn't go anywhere else that It is an unbelievable great
college that's a life skills university. And he was a
(29:38):
little bit of introvert. And now I mean he's that
they fixed all that and really it's yes, unbelievable.
Speaker 3 (29:44):
It was ran like a business.
Speaker 4 (29:46):
Yeah. Like I told my son and said, you still
need to meet him and set up a dinner. So
that's that's on his to do that's on his to
do list. He's got two and a half years left
to reach.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
I think if somebody figures out the right way to
bone up and get to him, he'll go to dinner
with him, just like us.
Speaker 3 (30:03):
Right.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
I always say old tongue likes to wag. You just
got to have the courage to go after it tactfully
read good to great, right, And that was your tests
of people old tongue likes the wag is richest man.
But that was your test with young people that would
oh yeah, yeah. I mean, if you want to have
my time, read this book and then call me.
Speaker 3 (30:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
I mean, you know how few few aspiring folks call me.
Speaker 3 (30:27):
And asked me to go to dinner.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
I say, you read this book, I'll refresh and I'll
buy you dinner, and well, I'll give you another book.
Nice if some got I mean, I don't guess I'm successful.
But if some business owner told me that when I
was young, I'd have read every day on the book
I could have got my hands on. So uh well, Michael,
I mean, what you have any any theories on how
(30:51):
you live business and family that that you want to
encapsulate on a life lesson you can leave with our audience.
Speaker 4 (30:59):
I think 's say, I work with out three brothers.
We get along great. We're fortunate that we each run
a different part of the business. But you know, I
think having breakfast every day together does help. But like
we go on vacation together, and I think the big
thing is my brother and we can argue sometimes and fight,
but as soon as it's over, you drop it and
let it go because it's for the greater good of
(31:20):
the business. And at the end of the day, we
know that we have the business's best interest at heart.
And so I think that's you know, sometimes you's got
to drop your ego and you know it's uh and
it's it's okay to fight. You're just pushing each other
to get better as long as you know it's it's
not personal, you know.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
So I think that's one of the things across personal
lines too.
Speaker 4 (31:38):
So, yeah, so we play golf together and we do
stuff and it's like, you know, and my my youngest brother,
as he got into it, he's like, I just can't
believe y'all fault this morning. You're gonna go play golf
this afternoon. It's like, yeah, It's like it's not it's
not like we're fight fighting, we're not calling each other names.
We're just trying to push each other to make the
business better. And I think I attribute that to my
mom and dad. They were always one day they didn't
(31:59):
care if we fault, is that you made up right
away and if you did, and my dad would call
you to his office and he's sitting there it's like
we're gonna sitting here till we figured this out. Yeah,
And I think if people would just do that instead
of letting harbor inside of and that that's always the
way I tell people is like, you know, just like
talk to people and talk to your family, and you
know that's a you know, it's I mean, I love
working with my family. I wouldn't want to do it
any other way.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
Well, Pastor's heard me say this many times. My dad
talked about me and my brother partners. He's four years older.
Our personalities are different, we have different sides of roles
in the business. And he would say, if y'all can't
be fifty to fifty in work every day to get
along and we'll burn the whole dang thing down, it's
not worth having in our mono e mono relationships.
Speaker 3 (32:41):
So it's been great.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
And it's just like having a being a parent, or
having parents or having a spouse. You just got to work.
I saw I like partners. Patrick, my partner, dag on it.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Damn right.
Speaker 3 (32:55):
Good.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
Well, uh well, Michael, thank you for being here. It's
been a blessing. I'm glad Jeff really wants to connect,
always trying to develop other people and help other people.
Jeff Naper, I look forward to playing golf with you. Hopefully,
absolutely we can do that. We get out there and
uh and happy holidays and Merry Christmas to you as well.
(33:17):
So thanks for listening to the At Home with Roby Show.
Thank you to our guest Michael, and uh go do
the Golden rule today. Treat others the way you want
to be treated, carry a smile around on your face.
Speaker 3 (33:31):
Take care,
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