In fact, the Laytonsville company is all about green, from its humble beginnings as a few guys with lawn mowers to its maturation into a $60 million landscape development company. It has a tree-growing operation that has planted about 1 million trees and has 475 acres in Montgomery County that are used to grow more than 70,000 trees, which are sold up and down the East Coast.

What’s new is the company’s decision to ‘‘use its resources proactively to make more of an impact on the green initiative” and build a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design-certified, corporate headquarters campus, to be completed this summer in Laytonsville. The LEED rating from the U.S. Green Building Council is a nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction and operation of high-performance green buildings. Ruppert is seeking a platinum rating, the highest level.

Craig Ruppert, president of Ruppert Cos., which includes landscaping, real estate and landscape management companies, said the construction involves six buildings for the company’s 600 employees, over 16 acres. He said the move-in date is ‘‘probably going to be more like late summer, but we’re getting there. It’s a steady process that takes more time when you’re going green. We’re not in a big rush. We want to do it right.”

The LEED program includes these criteria: site sustainability; water efficiency; energy use and savings; materials and resources, and indoor environmental quality.

Said Ruppert, a regional finalist for this year’s Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Awards, ‘‘In addition to the obvious environmental impact, we believe that our new green headquarters will help increase our productivity by making our employees happier and healthier in the long run. Doing something that makes your employees say that they’re proud to work here really has an immeasurable impact on morale.”

The Business Gazette recently talked to Ruppert, and longtime executive Chris Davitt about green building, as well as how the company started, was sold and then restarted in another form.

Isn’t going green costly?

Yes, going green definitely cost us about 15 percent more. We chose to do it because it seemed like the right thing to do ... and everything I read about a green building is [it’s] a more healthy place to work, the air is fresher, there are no toxins in the paint or in the carpet. Everything inside is natural. [And] by making a building more energy-efficient, through better insulation, lighting and a more efficient heating and cooling system, we save on energy expenses.

How has the company been doing lately, with the economic slowdown?

At Ruppert Properties we are not building right now. We’re focusing on leasing properties, and waiting and seeing what happens with the economy. Our [landscape] business, grass-cutting and maintenance, is less affected because our customers want to take care of their property. On the new construction side, we have adequate work for ’08 and most of ’09 ... 2010 is what concerns us the most.

How did the company start?

It started when I started cutting grass as a kid ... this was before high school really, just cutting grass in the neighborhood. I was one of eight kids, and we grew up in the Bethesda-Chevy Chase area, right near the D.C. line. The grass-cutting gradually grew into a business which we incorporated in 1977. This was three years after my brother Chris joined the company.

How many employees?

When we started it was my brother Chris full-time and me part-time, because I had a job working for a general contractor for seven years, from 1973 to 1980, and I really learned there. It was a fire restoration company, and I had the excellent opportunity to be mentored by the owner of that company, who really helped me learn what business was all about.

Somewhere along the line I grew to really like the landscaping business. I didn’t start off liking it, but I always liked being outside and I also worked on a farm for a summer as a kid.

Where were you based?

In Ashton, at Rice Manor. It was Sam Rice’s [former Washington Senators baseball star] old home, where we had our headquarters from 1980 to 1998, when we sold the business.

We started out residential, and made the conversion from residential and commercial, to all commercial in about 1980. We were using used lawn mowers for a long time. We bought everything used before we bought it new. I think our first new investment [$7,000] in equipment was the Toro Grand Master [riding mower] in 1979.

Where was most of your work then?

In Northwest Washington, Bethesda, Chevy Chase, some in Silver Spring, single-family homes. Our first job was $3 a lawn.

Why did you decide to get out of residential?

We figured that we could be more efficient and grow the business more effectively. Our first big commercial jobs was an apartment complex in Kenwood [a Bethesda neighborhood], about 3 acres. The big milestone jobs that I think of [were] a $50,000 installation [landscaping] we did for an office building. Then there was an office building where [we] did a design build installation. Then there was a $100,000 job, a tech park, off I-270.

We grew from about 20 employees in 1980 to 150 in 1988.

And you grew your revenue to?

At the time of the sale in 1998 we did $45 million. We had about 850 employees.

Why did you sell?

We had, between Philadelphia and Atlanta, eight locations. At that time we saw a benefit in becoming part of a national organization. The industry was changing, not just in landscape but HVAC, other service businesses were consolidating, and we thought that was a good opportunity for us for several reasons.

Davitt: There were 14 companies that gave us written offers to buy the company.

Ruppert: The other compelling reason was the price. They were offering a multiple of earnings that was very attractive to us and very surprising to us.

Who did you sell to?

Ruppert: At the time it was a division of Service Master, Tru Green Chem Lawn, which became Tru Green Land Care. Service Master was a $7 billion company at the time.

So how long did it work, before it didn’t work?

Ruppert: It worked about five months, before we decided it was best to move on.

Davitt: What happened was, as soon as you do that [complete the sale of a company] ... you see the complexities of dealing with a big company ... and their plans, you are starting to find out, are different from your plans, even though we had gone through all this in detail. We realized the nature of the thing was changing overnight and it was fast approaching getting out of our control, which is what we wanted to be so careful of.

So you started another company?

Ruppert: We thought about what we might do for a while; we wanted to stay busy. We had sold the trademark to the name Ruppert Landscape Co. So when we started again, Ruppert Nurseries was the only name we could really use, and we had a five-year non-compete period we had to honor [not to do landscaping work]. The one thing we didn’t sell, which was a very small part of our company, was the tree-growing. So that ended up being where we came back to work.

We knew something about real estate, having developed four of our own facilities ... so we decided to get into the real estate business, to build buildings. Then as the non-compete period was running out, we had to decide whether are we going to start over again [in landscaping], or not.

Davitt: When you left [sold the business] and you got a break, it felt good, it felt great, but then you realized what’s gone is the thrill of working with people, depending on people, winning and losing together on a daily basis. You perform great on a job, you exceed the customer’s expectations, and it’s thrilling ... it’s hard, it’s a pain in the neck, it’s agonizing, but it’s thrilling.

Ruppert: And that’s the ingredient that was missing. And we had this big company take over our operation and it didn’t go well and we kind of discovered, ‘‘Hey, maybe we were smarter than we thought we were; maybe we could do a decent job of running a business like this.”

What’s been the secret of starting a business, making it a success, and then restarting and being successful again?

Ruppert: The reason we’ve been successful is that it has been our good fortune to have great people to work with. One of benefits of being CEO is people want to give you attention and I get more of that than I deserve ... It really belongs to partners and co-workers who enable us to be successful. People like Chris Davitt and my brother Chris, and Bill Meissner [president of Ruppert Properties] ... and there are 12 other key people who are partners, who are shareholders.

What makes our company unique, makes us us, is the quality of our people ...they are the ones who create our success, who satisfy our customers and who deserve the recognition.

CRAIG RUPPERT

Position: President of Ruppert Cos. of Laytonsville, comprising Ruppert Nurseries, which provides landscape development and tree-growing services; Ruppert Properties, which provides real estate development, construction management, build-to-suit, property management and development services and construction services; and Ruppert Ventures, which includes business development and investment activities.

Residence: Laytonsville.

Family: Wife, four children ages 17 to 25.

Hobbies: swimming, biking, running, family activities, working around the farm.

Organizations: Board member and past chairman, Easter Seals, Greater Baltimore-Washington Region; retired director, Federal Reserve Board; board member, Rodgers & Associates, Germantown; board member, Sandy Spring Bank, Olney; World President’s Organization, Chesapeake chapter; Montgomery County Farmers Club.

Personal Awards: Philanthropist of the Year, Easter Seals, 2007.

Company Awards: Ruppert Nurseries, National Capital Business Ethics Award, National Capital Chapter of the Society of Financial Services Professionals, 2007.