Chamber News

30-year business owner recognized

Linda Swanson is Wantagh's small businessperson of the year

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Success in business is often the result of providing good customer service. That is Linda Swanson’s goal as one of the owners of Wantagh-based Environmental Landscaping and Design.

Swanson was named the Wantagh Chamber of Commerce’s 2014 small businessperson of the year. She was recognized along with 40 other entrepreneurs at the Nassau Council of Chambers of Commerce annual legislative breakfast on Oct. 17 at the Crest Hollow County Club in Woodbury.

In 1984, she and her-then fiancé Larry opened the business. Over the last 30 years, the husband and wife team expanded their business, which offers services from basic landscaping to custom designs.

Environmental Landscaping and Design specializes in custom water features and low-voltage accent lighting. Construction accounts for about 75 percent of business. Its completed work can be found at homes throughout Nassau and Suffolk counties, and even in Manhattan.

The business also has nearly 150 clients who receive regular landscaping services. When Environmental Landscaping and Design first opened, Swanson could often be found mowing lawns. Today, her responsibilities include bookkeeping, marketing, advertising and networking. She described her job as the behind-the-scenes work that keeps the business going.

Although much of her time is spent in the office, Swanson often visits job sites to get a feel for the work being done or to take photos of completed projects. When a customer calls, she wants to be able to explain in detail the services and quality that Environmental Landscaping and Design can provide.

Swanson took some time off to raise her two children, Christopher, 27, and Matthew, 25. Once they were grown, she stepped back in to the business, and made her top priority customer service. Just being there to answer the phone, she said, can go a long way in fostering a relationship with a client.

At 15, Swanson found her first job working for a local florist. She attended SUNY Farmingdale from 1978-80, where she earned a degree in floriculture. Swanson continued her career in floral design, working at Beckman’s Florist in East Northport before going into business with her husband.

Larry Swanson said one of the reasons Environmental Landscaping and Design has been successful is because of the company’s commitment to honest and reliability. “Do what you say, when you say, for how much you say,” he said. “That’s so simple, but not a lot people do it.”

For the past year, Swanson has also been executive director of the Chamber of Commerce, where she assists the president and other officers. It’s a part-time paid position, and she helps cultivate new membership, schedules ribbon-cutting ceremonies and plans the monthly meetings. “My position is to kind of be like a helper,” she said. “I don’t like to be in the forefront. I like to be behind the scenes.”

Environmental Landscaping and Design has been part of the Chamber for more than a decade. Swanson said it is important to network and connect with the community. Hopefully, she said, Wantagh residents reciprocate by shopping local.

Being named small businessperson of the year is certainly not recognition that Swanson was seeking. “It’s an honor,” she said. “I’m not one that looks for all the accolades.”