BUSINESS MANAGEMENT

By Justin White

I recently promoted Sean Laux to leader of innovation and technology at K & D Landscaping. The announcement got attention, but the questions I got weren ' t about Sean— they were about the role. What does an innovation leader actually do? Why does a landscaping company need one? And should I be building this position too? The answer is yes, and soon.

Five years ago, this role didn ' t exist in our industry. Today I believe it will become one of the most important seats at the leadership table for every serious trades company in America.

For decades, technology in the trades meant IT. If a company was big enough to have a technology department at all, that team was focused on keeping servers running, protecting data and managing software licenses. Important work. But it was defensive. It kept the lights on. It didn ' t move the business forward. What ' s happening now is different. Three forces are hitting our industry at the same time. Artificial intelligence is changing how we estimate, schedule, communicate and make decisions. Autonomous equipment is real and working. And electrification is rewriting our fleets. For example, our branch location in San Luis Obispo, California, launched with an all-electric equipment lineup from day one. None of that is IT work. It ' s innovation work. And it needs an owner.

Here ' s the part most companies get wrong. They think this role is about building or buying technology. It ' s not. It ' s about adoption. Yes, Sean builds, but the bigger part of his job is coaching our team on how to use technology, implementing it in the field and helping people manage change. You can build the best tools in the world, but if no one uses them, it doesn ' t matter. The graveyard of trades technology is full of great software that crews never opened.

That ' s why this role reports to leadership and sits on our executive team. Innovation isn ' t a project; it ' s a discipline. It touches every department, every crew and every process. It needs someone who can write a workflow in the morning and stand in front of a field crew in the afternoon.

At K & D, we aren ' t chasing AI to squeeze out a few efficiency points. We believe this technology wave will drive us to a $ 100,000 minimum salary for our team. That ' s our North Star— not just in the office, but in the field. That ' s the story the trades should be telling. This isn ' t about replacing people; it ' s about making skilled trade work pay like the essential career it is. The companies that figure out innovation and adoption will be the ones that can afford to pay their people more, promote from within and compete for the next generation of talent.

Over the next several months, we ' re sharing exactly what we ' ve built. At NALP Elevate in Tampa this November, we ' ll roll out our full executive stack AI solution and show the industry what ' s under the hood. If you run a trades company and you ' re wondering whether you need this role, you ' re already asking the right question. The companies that create it now will set the pace. The ones that wait will spend the next decade catching up. Raise the bar or get comfortable being average.

Justin White is CEO of K & D Landscaping in Watsonville, California, founder of The Disruptors community for trades leaders and host of the TradesTalk podcast.