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Posted 03.19.2009

17th annual Colorado Ethics in Business Alliance Awards

Page 5

Ethics in Business Award
DESIGNS BY SUNDOWN

Mike Hommel, Designs by Sundown founder

After graduating from Colorado State University with a political science degree in 1984, Mike Hommel wanted to join the FBI. But upon learning the agency expected three years of law-enforcement experience, Hommel rethought his career plans. He launched Sundown Sprinkler Systems in his parents’ garage with two trucks and a couple of college buddies who couldn’t find jobs. Two years later, Hommel expanded the irrigation business to include landscape architecture and changed the company’s name to Designs By Sundown.

Honing his irrigation and landscaping craft in fast-growing Highlands Ranch, the company began migrating in 1994 to the high-end custom market of homes $1 million and up in areas like Cherry Hills Village, Greenwood Village, The Preserve and Castle Pines. Today, the Englewood-based company employs more than 100 people, has about 65 company vehicles on the road and serves about 120 clients a year. To Hommel, ethics is a simple concept. It’s also the biggest reason his company has flourished for nearly 25 years, through one major recession in the mid-80s and amid an even worse economic downturn today.

We do what we say we’re going to do when we say we’re going to do it,” says Hommel, 47. “And we don’t break our promises. It’s so common in the construction industry not to show up when you say you’re going to show up or not do what you say you’re going to do. A company that stands behind its work is so far ahead of the competition.” Quality control is a steeper challenge for a business whose employees primarily are out in the field and not in a central office. For that reason, Hommel says it’s all the more important that he has a team that’s aligned with his business philosophy.

Designs By Sundown has its own warranty department, and it’s typical for the company to visit a job site three or four times during the course of the year after completing a project. “We look at things like dry areas in the turf, plants that are dead, trees that are dead,” Hommel says. “The bottom line is, we take care of those problems.” Hommel calls his fleet of company trucks, all of which are equipped with GPS devices, “moving billboards on the street,” and so it’s vitally important that they reflect positively on the company. Designs By Sundown employs two in-house mechanics to service the fleet.

Over the years, Designs by Sundown and its employees have volunteered for projects such as Habitat for Humanity for which they spent Saturdays and numerous evenings landscaping and installing irrigation systems for homes in an Aurora community; they also renovated the landscape for The Delores Project, a shelter for women requiring assistance in Denver. The last three to five years have been fairly revolutionary for the landscaping industry with the emphasis on sustainable systems and water conservation.

Hommel cites green initiatives such as LEED certification for buildings and says, “We’re trying to spearhead that on the landscape architecture side. We’re real proactive in water management, installing weather-sensitive controllers that only water the landscape when it needs to be watered. The sophistication today is amazing.” Hommel says his high-end clients are surprisingly price conscious and expect to get their money’s worth. “They don’t mind paying a premium for your service, but they want a premium on the quality of product they get and in the service they get,” he says. “They want you to be better educated than the rest of the guns out there. They want to know, ‘What can you do to save me water and make my yard look better and make sure my beds are prepared better and make sure my turf looks good all summer long?’” — Mike Taylor

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