IAA Friendship leads to Lasting Impressions

Lasting Impressions Company photo

Image Credit: Lasting Impressions

July 11, 2013

  If you’ve ever attended a Redskins game at Fed-Ex Stadium the name Lasting Impressions might ring a bell.  Perhaps it’s the large banners above entrances, digital advertising around the stadium, or their epic tailgate parties with live bands and catered food (actually featured on NFL Films). However you might not have realized that Lasting Impressions is a landscape contracting company owned by two IAA graduates.

  Jim Flippo and Ken Combs were turfgrass management majors at the IAA in the 1970s. Both started their careers as golf course superintendents.  Combs actually followed Flippo as Golf and Grounds Superintendent at the sprawling Leisure World community in Silver Spring. Flippo started Lasting Impressions in 1980 and Combs joined him as a partner in 1984. Today they maintain more than 170 properties and employ over 150 people.

  Combs says the secret to their success has been relationships.  Approximately 90% of their enhancement and new installation work for their eight crews comes from properties they already maintain.  Lasting Impressions is truly a full service landscape contractor, they do not subcontract work like many of the large, national firms. They provide a staggering 54 different landscape services in house including all maintenance activities as well as irrigation installation, hardscaping, and tree work.  They grow much of their own plant material in their 30 greenhouses and even manufacture their own mulch.

  There is no denying that Flippo and Combs love sports. Their relationship with the Redskins led to the total renovation of the Fed-Ex grounds, work at Redskins Park, and a maintenance agreement at the new Redskins training camp facility in Richmond, VA.  They also maintain 18 high school fields in Prince George’s County in a partnership with the Redskins called Fields for Tomorrow.  Since golf course maintenance is their blood, Lasting Impressions contractually maintains three courses: Heritage Harbor near Annapolis and Blue Heron and Cove Creek on Kent Island.

  They have a large headquarters facility in Upper Marlboro and satellite facilities in Bowie, Clinton, Kent Island, and Chantilly, VA.  At their Upper Marlboro complex they actually maintain six golf holes and a soccer field, both used as experimental plots and training grounds for employees.  They are also innovators in the use of clean burning propane for mowers and trucks.  Eventually, they hope to operate their fleet without gasoline using propane for large equipment and solar generated electrical power for small equipment.