Born and raised a dairy farmer, Barry Kotler made the switch to sod 9 years ago when he began at Greenhorizons. “I started in the sod business 9 years ago. Originally I was working in the restoration business when I was approached by a sod company to manage their farm operation, I took the job and have continued to love the business.” explains Barry.  With all his agri-experience, Barry was a perfect fit for Greenhorizons. Today, you’ll find him managing the day to day operations at the Specialty Turf location, where he and his team develop, improve and grow specialty products for the golf course industry. Barry also oversees the grass cutters and the growing of the sod in Hamilton which includes seeding, fertilizing and spraying. 

”Problem-solving is a big part of this job,” explains Barry, “The day-to-day challenges of making things run smoothly and the constant changes that take place are what make things interesting. I overcome these challenges by meeting them head-on and working with my team to come up with better ideas and research.” Barry and his team work day in and day out, dawn until dusk developing superior sod. “The type of soil we grow our specialty sod on is very close to what the golf courses are laying the sod on. It’s the same type of dirt that allows us to grow it very fast at our Specialty Products location”. Research is the key to Barry and his team’s success. “It is imperative that we work very close with our fertilizer and chemical suppliers for their knowledge of what to feed our sod. Being informed ensures our products are developed fast while maintaining strong, high quality results”.  

It is because of these techniques and leaders like Barry that Greenhorizons has the privilege of working on such large important projects, such as a third sod installation at the Rogers Centre. “Scott’s crew and my team at Princeton have all done the Rogers Centre job before, we were the very first to put real sod in the Rogers Centre for a soccer game. It was probably 5 or 6 years ago that we did it for the first time and then again the next year. This is now our third time doing it, and it really is a great project to be a part of.” This type of job, though exciting, brings Barry and his team many challenges:  “You have to have perfect sod and you only have a very short time to install it- not to mention a short time to get it out. You only have a few hours to get it ready for play and in instances like this- only one game is played on it and then the sod comes out.” It takes about 24 hours of non stop harvesting to have all the sod needed to cover the Rogers Centre. Eighteen truck loads of big roll which is cut shorter than Greenhorizons regular big roll only because it has to be cut extra thick so that it will not move on the cement floor of the Rogers Centre. Details, details, details- Barry is a master of perfecting the fine details.

Much like everyone at the company, Barry finds the values he works towards are extremely motivating and ambitious. “I like that our company is very customer oriented and puts the customers’ needs first. I like how the company does many different things, and really does not have all their eggs in one basket and is a family run business.” Barry is very excited about this job because not only does it continue to bring new opportunities for further technique development, it is such a big deal to do a job of this size and to have world renowned soccer players play on it.