SALEM — The family tradition of growing shade trees originally held no appeal for John Lewis, who had every intention of pursuing an alternate career path.

Having watched his father and grandfather cope with the industry’s uncertainties, Lewis sought a more financially predictable way to make a living.

“I didn’t want to go into the nursery business because we were always broke growing up,” he said. “I literally said nursery was the last thing I’d do. Look at me now.”

As frequently occurs in agriculture, heritage overpowered the early reluctance felt by Lewis, who’s president of JLPN, a wholesale nursery near Salem.

However, returning to the nursery industry initially seemed to confirm his gravest misgivings about its pitfalls — Lewis took over his father’s company in 2007, right before the housing market crashed and touched off the Great Recession.

‘Timing was horrendous’

“The economy collapsed. We were in debt up to our neck with no sales,” he said. “The timing was horrendous. It was absolutely terrible.”

Fulfilling his obligations to purchase the company and its land at a time of anemic nursery stock demand wasn’t easy, but that turbulent period imparted durable lessons about surviving

upheaval. Lewis has compiled those principles into a 65-page document meant to provide a “repeatable business model” for his own son, Trystan.

A transformation

“I went from being all about being a tree grower to all about being a businessman,” Lewis said.

By observing what drove many other nurseries to shut down during the depth of the downturn, he learned to value quality over quantity in business relationships.

Dealing with a customer who buys large volumes of product isn’t worthwhile if it requires enduring late payments, broken promises and dishonest practices, Lewis said.

Buyers who behave unethically will be the first to leave a nursery in the lurch when times get tough, so it’s better not to depend on those sales, he said.

“We don’t sell to people who are unreliable. We know when to divorce,” Lewis said. “I’ve cut big customers who were just bad business.”

Finding and keeping responsible employees is another cornerstone of his business philosophy, as evidenced by the loyalty of JLPN’s workers. Roughly 70% have worked at the company for 20 years or longer.

“You’ve got to have great people to have a great business,” Lewis said.

Two-way street

Trust is a major component of that dynamic, but it’s important to remember it’s a two-way street, he said. The employees must have confidence in their boss, who in turn must have faith in their judgment.

Lewis said he believes strongly in the opposite of “micromanagement,” which amounts to breathing down people’s necks. Workers should instead be allow to make decisions and learn from any mistakes along the way, investing them in the company’s success.

“We never have to worry about anyone showing up for work and doing their job right,” Lewis said.

Though a solid workforce is key to a nursery’s performance, JLPN isn’t counting on labor availability or costs to meaningfully improve.

Invest in mechanization

Once the nursery industry’s fortunes began to recover more than a decade ago, Lewis began investing in mechanization. For example, JLPN bought automated potting equipment that lets the company do five times the work with the same number of employees.

“My theory was if we spend the money now, when we don’t have labor, we’ll have the machinery,” he said. “A lot of people were afraid of the expense of it, but I was afraid of going out of business.”

Growing top-notch nursery stock is necessary to attract the most reliable customers, but quickly adapting to fluctuating markets is also crucial, Lewis said.

JLPN specializes in the first stage of production, propagating deciduous trees from seeds and cuttings, then selling the young plants after about 9 months to other nurseries, which grow them to full size.

“I like to think of it as the schooling system. We’re like elementary school,” said Trystan.

The rapid turnaround prevents JLPN from spending years growing trees that fall out of favor by the time they’re ready to sell, Lewis said. However, the buffer between the company and the ultimate customer means it must find other ways to track retail trends.

“If something picks up in popularity, we’re able to respond fast. We’re able to answer the call quickly,” he said. “If the end consumer changes their mind, we can change our mind just as quick.”

Next generation

Beyond the day-to-day and year-to-year choices involved in running a nursery, Lewis believes in contending with its long-term continuity. In JLPN’s case, one of the major questions about its future has already been answered.

Unlike his father, Trystan Lewis has no qualms about carrying on the family business — in fact, he’s been ready since kindergarten, when he asked his parents to leave school to work at the nursery.

“I have phenomenal memories of pulling weeds as my summer job,” said Trystan, who at 21 has been employed at JLPN full-time for two years.

His early love of tractors has remained constant, evolving into a broader interest in robotics and the mechanization of nursery processes.

“I want to make sure we stay on top of that, and automate as much as we can,” Trystan said.

His sister, Marley, is studying business at Oregon State University but doesn’t currently aspire to put that knowledge to use at JLPN.

However, Lewis says he won’t rule out his daughter’s outlook shifting with time.

Much has changed since Lewis’ grandfather began growing nursery stock about 60 years ago along a gravel stretch of Lancaster Drive, which is now one of Salem’s busiest commercial thoroughfares.

Yet the family business has persisted through four generations despite such reversals — or in Lewis’s case, because of one.

“It’s getting harder and harder to figure out family succession plans, but we’ve been able to do it a few times,” Lewis said.

Acronym meaning: Johnathon Lee Propagation Nursery

President: John Lewis

Employees: 35 year-round, 35 seasonal

Sales: 5.5 million-6 million plants annually

Product type: About 150 varieties of deciduous trees

Location: Salem, Ore.

Size: 157 acres, including 8 acres of greenhouses

History: Merriwether Lewis began growing nursery stock in the 1960s and sold the company in 1990 to his son, Bill Lewis, who combined it with his own nursery. His son, John Lewis, began working for the nursery in 2000 and bought it from his father in 2007. It’s now incorporated as JLPN and employs Trystan Lewis, the founder’s great-grandson.