Brandon Duke & other industry leaders serve on panel at Lawn & Landscape Top 100 Summit

Josh Burton is a native of Lakeland, Florida, who has been involved in the green industry since a very young age. He studied Horticultural Science and Business Administration at Florida Southern College where he obtained a Bachelor of Science degree. The green industry is Josh’s passion and led him to run his own landscape firm for 23 years. 

Josh is a State Certified Irrigation Contractor, Certified Pest Control Operator and holds a  license with the Department of Business and Professional Regulation. His strategy is to develop a plan, set goals, and hold accountability. Dissecting contracts and breaking down a property into segments allows for a calculated approach that will ultimately provide the high customer satisfaction that is expected.

Josh believes that building great teams and placing people in the right positions are the keys to success. He focuses on the development of the people around him to achieve his goals.

Jim has over 25 years of experience in operational management and customer service in the landscaping industry. He started as an Owner/Operator in landscape, construction, and janitorial services, gaining valuable experience in business ownership and management. He has excelled in the landscape industry as a Senior Manager for over two decades, specializing in landscape design and implementing strategies for productivity and customer service excellence.

His areas of expertise include operational excellence, driving growth, and implementing productivity improvements. Jim is recognized for his ability to lead teams to achieve high-performance standards while focusing on employee development and customer satisfaction. Jim has made significant contributions to the landscaping industry through his knowledge, leadership skills, and commitment to excellence. 

He has lived in Bradenton, Florida his entire life and is a proud father to three grown children: Morgan, Nick, and Tayler, who have given him five grandchildren. Outside of work, he enjoys spending time with family, especially his two granddaughters, and is an avid enthusiast of Harley-Davidson motorcycles. Jim enjoys the thrill of riding and exploring new destinations.

Joe Ferro is a highly experienced professional with 20 years of experience in the landscape industry, 5 years of which have been spent at Juniper.  

With a degree in Accounting from Barry University, and MBA in Finance from Texas A&M, and a certified Pest Control Operator in Florida,  Joe brings a wide range of skill sets to Juniper. 

Joe was recently promoted to Vice President of FP&A, which aligns with this expertise in FP&A, finance, forecasting, budgeting, and mergers and acquisitions. He has successfully led significant projects, including building Juniper’s first full company budget and forecasting tools in 2020 and integrating 8 acquisition totalling $40M+ in 2022-2023. Joe is currently focused on financial planning and mergers and acquisitions growth strategies to support Juniper’s rapid expansion. 

Joe is currently located in Fort Myers, but was originally from Miami. He has been happily married for 13 years and enjoys traveling, biking, and the occasional game of golf. 

Mark joined the company in 2021 as an Estimator and was quickly promoted to Estimating Manager in January 2022. His continued success led to his advancement to Director of Business Services later that year.

In his new role, Mark will continue to lead the Customer Care and Maintenance estimating teams for Juniper and take on new leadership functions in the development of the next generation of Juniper Sync as well as a centralized maintenance contract management process. Mark will report directly to Dan deMont, Chief Revenue Officer (CRO).

Jason joins Juniper with over 20 years of finance and accounting experience across various industries for Fortune 500 public and private equity backed companies.  He is credited as a dedicated, hands-on, and cross functional partner that drives financial performance through operational excellence. Most recently, Jason served as the CFO for Flexi International Software, Inc. where he led all core FP&A processes, accounting, financial audits, legal, tax and treasury management functions.  He developed financial and
cash flow forecast models, annual budgets, strategic plan and financial reporting processes and all associated models, KPIs and analytics.  

Jason earned his Bachelor of Science in International Business from Florida Atlantic University and completed the executive leadership and management program at the Wharton School.  He is a Certified Six Sigma Green Belt.  He resides in Naples with his wife and 4 kids and enjoys serving in the community and living a competitive bodybuilding lifestyle.

Jarrett Myers a Florida Native has been in the landscape industry for over 25 years. Of those 25 years 14 were as an entrepreneur. He is a Certified Pest Control Operator, Best Management Practice Certified and holds an AS degree in Computer Aided Drafting.

Challenging teams to never become complacent, along with educating clients on the ever-changing landscape industry challenges through soil science, irrigation technological advances, improvement in chemical sciences as well as all Junipers unique approach to property management drives Jarrett.

Jarrett’s passion is to prepare all team members to have a chance at a successful career in the landscape industry. “There is nothing more satisfying then watching someone you have groomed overtime to become today’s leader in the industry.”

In his free time, Jarrett enjoys the outdoor life, fishing, boating, kayaking and spending time with his beautiful wife Lori and daughter Hayley.

Nick Salerno is Juniper’s Vice President of Maintenance Operations – Florida. He brings over 18 years of landscape, maintenance, and contracting experience to the role and is dedicated to overseeing the development of his team. 

He is an FNGLA Certified Horticulture Professional (FCHP), BMP Certified, and holds a “turf management certification”.

Nick studied at The Ohio State University and earned a degree in turf grass management. After graduation, he moved to southwest Florida to pursue a career in the landscaping industry. Nick worked with a local landscape company and was quickly promoted to President of Field Operations after self-teaching himself the Florida landscape. Less than two years later, Nick became General Manager of a local nursery, sharing his passion for the Florida landscape with both retail and commercial clients. 

After three years of nursery management, Nick pursued his passion for turf management and started working in the golf course field as an assistant superintendent, quickly climbing his way to the role of superintendent. Nick has worked his way through many facets of the landscape and golf course industry and brings this expertise to his role at Juniper.

Nick is highly motivated and passionate about Juniper’s core values. He drives results by leading his team by example and is inspired by their care for their work. 

Stacie Trace is our Chief Human Resources Officer with over 25 years of business experience ranging from accounting, training, safety, and HR. In the past 15, she has honed her skills as an HR Leader by focusing on optimization at all levels of an organization. 

Originally from Columbus, Ohio, Stacie earned her Bachelor of Science degree from The Ohio State University. She combined the knowledge she gained here with her passion for working with people to begin a career centered around a company’s most valuable asset: their employees.

During her time at Juniper, Stacie has proven to be a resourceful, collaborative, and engaging HR leader and has delivered impressive acquisition, training, and retention solutions. She is committed to ensuring that Juniper fosters an encouraging environment and is comprised of talented individuals from diverse backgrounds.

She has been acknowledged for her expertise in HR-related duties at the strategic level by the Society for Human Resources Management through the title of Senior Certified Professional. Stacie was also a recipient of the Diversity and Inclusion Champion Award of Licking County to acknowledge her efforts in both implementing and supporting diversity initiatives. 

While she enjoys working with all people, she is especially inspired daily by her four kids and husband. Outside of work, she spends her time going to the beach, boating, and doing home improvement projects.

Lew Marotti is Juniper’s Director of Construction. In his position, he has created scalable construction strategies for all stages of a project. By emphasizing client satisfaction, Lew ensures all construction-related projects have the resources necessary to succeed. 

Lew is a native Floridian and graduate of Florida Southern College with 20 years of experience in landscape construction and 30 years in the horticultural industry.

Lew has been married for 32 years and enjoys spending time with his wife and three children. Outside of work, he enjoys outdoor activities including gardening and baseball.

Robert Oulahan is Juniper’s Chief Financial Officer. He has spent the majority of his 25+ year career serving middle market companies in financial leadership positions. His experience includes years with “Big 4” accounting firms, Nasdaq-listed companies, and strong growth-focused entities. He has helped guide these businesses by implementing various financial and tax solutions that aligned with the company’s strategies and core values.

Robert graduated Rutgers University with Magna Cum Laude. After college, he successfully obtained his CPA certification and entered the financial space immediately after. 

He has specialized in the service industry and construction companies during his career in the public and private sectors. 

In his free time, Robert enjoys playing golf, traveling, and spending time on the beach.

Jake Rubin is Juniper’s Chief Operating Officer. He works to establish peak operational performance through the creation and implementation of best practices at all levels of the company.

By engaging with branch teams across the organization, Jake has delivered improvements to operating margins and established processes focused on increased efficiency and quality. He also partners with Juniper’s HR team to develop and deliver operational improvement training programs to all branch operations teams.

Jake has a background of over 15 years in leadership roles managing large-scale, private equity-backed, multi-state operations in the transportation, construction, landscape, and commercial services industries. He is very experienced in areas such as margin improvement, merger and acquisition integration, and asset management at an enterprise level. 

Jake is enthusiastic about Juniper’s mission and ensures that all processes are designed to best serve Juniper’s team and their clients.

Dan DeMont joined the Juniper team in 2011. At the time Juniper had one branch but was preparing for growth. As the company’s first business developer he focused on diversification in three categories. First, service offering. Second, client base. Third, footprint.

Dan and Brandon were the architects of Juniper’s Design, Build and Maintain strategy. This caught like wildfire by 2012 as clients saw overwhelming value in having a sole source provider with full accountability. This value fueled rapid expansion of market share with existing clients and set Juniper up for an influx of new clients.

With that platform, Juniper added hundreds of clients over the next few years and balanced it’s construction & maintenance business substantially between residential, commercial & government work.

Under Dan’s leadership and in significant organic fashion, Juniper expanded into new geographic markets. Juniper’s footprint covers the entire southern half of Florida and services their clients from 9 branches and counting. Juniper is solicited to new markets for the largest and highest profile jobs in the state.

Dan built and manages a team of talented landscape architects and client managers that share the company’s vision and core values. Dan knows this is a people business and Juniper invests heavily in their people.

We are the best company in the southeast for maximizing your budgets, on time, in landscape design, construction & maintenance.

Brandon Duke is Juniper’s Chief Executive Officer and has been in the landscape industry for almost 15 years. He purchased the company from his father in 2016 after working with the family business since 2008. Under his leadership, Juniper has become the 17th largest landscaping company in the nation. 

Brandon has since worked tirelessly to make Juniper not only have an impressive reputation for quality of work, but also for a positive culture. He attributes an emphasis on collaboration and innovation combined with the utilization of data analytics to the rapid success of the company in recent years. Since Brandon became CEO, Juniper has grown from one location with 20 employees to 19 locations with nearly 2,000 employees, all of which he oversees. 

A Florida native, Brandon has lived here his entire life, with the only exception being when he attended Liberty University in Virginia to receive a degree in Business Management. There, he learned the importance of a united team as a starter on their football team for all four years. 

Brandon has been recognized as one of Lawn and Landscape’s Top 100 Landscapers consecutively for the past 7 years and is a Certified Irrigation Contractor. Most recently, he was named 2022 Entrepreneur of the Year by Business Observer after growing company revenue by an impressive 38.6% during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Looking ahead, Brandon plans to achieve Juniper’s lofty goals with an unrelenting focus on company culture and by keeping technological advancements at the forefront of the company. He is confident that the only way he will continue to set landscaping industry standards is by surrounding himself with a team of passionate professionals.

Outside of work, Brandon most enjoys spending time with his wife of 14 years, Megan, and their three children (Kellen, Maddy, and Owen). As a family, they love to take advantage of Florida’s natural beauty, as Brandon is an avid pilot and boating enthusiast.