LONG BEACH’S LORAX GIVES THANKS: A TRIBUTE TO 35 YEARS OF SALCO LANDSCAPING SERVICES
By John Grossi
I remember when our magazine first ran an article on SALCO Landscape Services in 2014. I felt like I had just revealed a super important piece of secret knowledge to the Long Beach community. However, once I had learned about SALCO—and fair warning this may happen to you too—I started to see them everywhere. In their purple shirts and branded trucks, SALCO landscapers have been behind the scenes making Long Beach a little greener and a lot more beautiful for over 30 years.
There’s something about people like Frank Spina, founder of SALCO, that makes me smile. While local restaurants, politics, and sports often make up the talk of the town, Long Beach is full of steadfast characters, like Frank Spina the arborist, that make our community what it is.
Frank’s legacy is literally all around us. Just look at the multitude of trees all over Long Beach. Hundreds, if not thousands, of big and little landscaping nooks in our city—both public and private properties—that we take for granted every day, have been designed, planted, rescued, and/or maintained by SALCO. From entranceways to the Peninsula and the Aquarium of the Pacific, to the foliage all over Long Beach State, Virginia Country Club, and the Ranchos… to countless private residences, front and back yards, SALCO’s hands have been in the soil.
Knowing How To Grow
Frank named the company after his dad Sal, who died when Frank was 16. The teenaged Frank, quite literally, grew a neighborhood lawn-mowing gig into what has become a massively impactful cornerstone of the Southern California community. This guy truly has a knack for growing.
Have you ever watched a USC football game and noticed the camera pan to a sea of cardinal and gold flowers? SALCO grew those. They also grew the flowers in front of DreamWorks Animation Studio in LA; and in fact, landscaped the whole property.
As for growing his business? According to Frank, “It’s truly amazing what word of mouth will do. All you have to do is treat people right, charge them fairly, and if you make a mistake, fix it without charging the client. People will refer you… we’ve been amazingly blessed to go from job to job for over three decades.”
Handing The Company Over
After 35 years, Frank’s decided to—sorry I have to say it—make like a tree and leave SALCO. As of last year, he has sold the company into the capable hands of John Sarabia, who is both a veteran landscaper and veteran of the US Military.
Spina encourages his long-time customers to continue calling Salco Landscape Services for all their landscaping needs, be it design, consultation, installation, maintenance, irrigation, and/or pest control. Almost all Salco’s long-time employees have stayed with the company, and Frank is excited to watch the legacy he built—in the name of his dad—continue to thrive.
SALCO Landscaping Services can be reached at:
John Sarabia
(562) 952-0266
An Ongoing Thank You To The 908 Community!
As Frank slides into semi-retirement (more on that later), he chose our magazine to say THANK YOU, for without this special 908 community, a story like his would have never been possible. As a lifelong resident of the East Long Beach/Plaza area, it was his small-town community in the 908 that encouraged Frank to start the business. Though he would eventually service major accounts all over Southern California, later flying around the entire country for arboricultural and horticultural consulting, it was the 90%, from ongoing support from people in Long Beach, that made Salco the success it is.
As an elementary school student at St. Joseph K-8 in Long Beach in the 1980s, Frank began mowing the lawns around his childhood home. After a few years, he could pretty much step out onto his porch and say that every lawn in sight was a part of his business.
One of his clients was his former elementary school teacher, Mrs. Lombardi. “I probably mowed her lawn from when I was 11 until I turned 18,” remembers Frank. “And then I’ll never forget, a few years later I was back from college, working in construction, Mrs. Lombardi asked me to come help do some yard work. Then some of her friends asked me for help too. I thought to myself ‘here we go again,’ and SALCO was born. I never woke up one morning and said, ‘I want to start a company.’ It truly grew just from being referred by one client to another, and it’s lasted for over three decades.”
Since 1989, SALCO has serviced over 1500 residential clients and over 900 commercial clients in Southern California, many of whom Frank won’t list out of respect for privacy. However, in addition to his over 50 local employees and his office staff, which he credits as “a group of strong, intelligent women who would have never allowed me to fail,” he wants to send his most heartfelt thank you to local clients to whom he owes the entirety of an amazing career.
His list of “thank yous” includes, but is not limited to:
AIG Insurance
Air Tech International
All Souls Cemetery
Allstate Insurance
Arrowhead Products, Los Alamitos
Arby’s Restaurants
Aeroplex
Boathouse on the Bay
Cal State Long Beach
Cal State San Bernardino
Cal State Fullerton
Chubb Insurance
City of Long Beach
City of Manhattan Beach
Cal State Fullerton
Coppersmith Logistics
Cottonwood Church
Crawford Technical Services
DreamWorks Bel Air Office
Good Shepherd Church
Graham Stanley Landscape Architect
Green Hills Memorial Park
Harbor Chevrolet
Hilton Hotels
JS Held
Lakewood YMCA
Long Beach Aquarium
Long Beach City College
Long Beach Iron Works
Lloyds of London
Los Altos Brethren Church
Marriott Hotels
Method Wheels
Mille and Severson
Mitchell Land and Improvement
Molina Center Long Beach
Naples Garden Club
Rancho Los Alamitos
St. Anthony
St. Bruno Church
St. Cornelius
St. Francis High School
St. Hedwig
St. John Bosco
St. Joseph’s
Saddleback College
State Farm Insurance
Tichnor Clinic
Trabuco and Holy Jim Canyon Homeowners Association
USC
United Airlines
Verbum Dei Jesuit High School
Virginia Country Club
Women’s Shelter
World Trade Center Long Beach
XL Insurance
Frank’s New Project: SALCO Arboriculture And Horticulture Is Born
Out of all the certifications he has earned, and the services and projects on which he’s worked over the years, Frank’s most specialized and unique niche is his uncanny ability to bring dying plants and trees back to life. Since becoming one of the few “certified arborists” in the country in 1998, Frank’s passion and knack for rescuing trees and plants has grown into a true expertise… through lots of ongoing education and even more “trial-and-error.”
“I have to give a special thanks to my wife Krista, who put up with me using our backyard as a testing lab for all these years,” acknowledges Frank. I remember one day she came home, and I had killed our entire backyard lawn trying to come up with a new cocktail for a plant-treatment.”
Frank’s been creating his own signature “tree cocktails”–out of mostly organic substances; consulting on maintenance remedies; and saving the trees and plants of his clients for decades. “I’ve been preaching ‘organic’ since back when people would look at me weird when I said the word,” laughs Frank. Nowadays, most accepted practices in California have followed his lead.
Being a “tree and plant doctor” is where his biggest passion lies, and it’s how he plans to continue servicing the community as a semi-retiree.
“If any of my clients want typical installation and maintenance, I’ll refer them to the original SALCO company which I sold. But that company can’t do arboricultural and horticultural consulting without my certified arborist license. So I’ll continue to do my work as a certified arborist consultant,” says Frank.
His goal is to work mainly in the 908 community, where he’s proud to be the local tree and plant doctor. Recently, he’s helped implement a process that ensures all trees on CSULB’s campus are saved during construction projects, of which at least four main projects are happening at any given time.
Additionally, because of the rarity of his certifications, he has for years been flown by insurance companies across the country to appraise inventory and consult on ways to save native plants after natural catastrophes.
“Every time a hurricane, a tornado, or a major flood hits our country, I know I’ll be getting on a plane a few days later,” says Frank.
As he was listing the intricate inner-workings of insurance requirements and the long list of certifications that qualify him for various specialized categories of government and insurance consulting, I was having trouble keeping up with (and spelling words for) my notes.
He paused and said, “I’ll tell you a story that perfectly sums up what my career is… it’s my favorite story and I think about it every day.”
His Favorite Story
“Many years ago, I was up in Northern California appraising trees after a wildfire… measuring them and taking photos… and this little kid, five or six years old, comes up on a little bicycle and says ‘Mister, mister, mister… what you’re doing?’
I didn’t know quite what to say, so I just said, ‘We’re working on some trees.’
He just looked at me and said ‘Ohhhh... so you work for the Lorax?’
I looked back at him, smiled, and replied. ‘Yes sir, you’re right, that’s exactly what I do. I work for the Lorax; I speak for the trees.’ Satisfied, the boy rode off on his bike.”
SALCO Arboriculture and Horticulture Inc, Frank S. Spina
(562) 534-5143
"Saving plants and trees is my burning passion and it honestly feels like an honor, a commitment for me to assist and help protect our environment. I guess that's the code of Lorax," says Frank.
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