Our Story

In 2003, Carl Norman retired from the State of Illinois after 30 years of working in Data Processing.  Since all his children had already relocated to the St. Louis area, they decided it was time to move from their home in Springfield, IL. So in 2004, they arrived in Wentzville, a few blocks away from Mark’s family in Bear Creek. Carl loved to work outdoors and wanted to keep active doing something he enjoyed, so he and Mark, who had an extensive background in the green industry, got together and created ProTurf Lawn Maintenance. The company was born with a small trailer, an old used mower, a trimmer, and a blower. Carl ran the business as a sole owner-operator for 14 years with Mark helping occasionally, slowly adding more customers over the years. 

In 2017, the workload was growing beyond what Carl could handle by himself, so Mark would help him on weekends and evenings. 

In 2018, Mark decided to help on a full-time basis. Mark had accumulated 30 years of experience in professional turf/ornamental, soil microbiology, and landscape management, with 15 years of executive management experience. At that time, the company only serviced 27 customers.  

By 2019, the business had grown to 45 customers and Mark’s oldest son Micah was helping after school and on weekends. As our customers grew, so did our services to keep up with customer requests. Landscape installations began to grow quickly and by the middle of that year, Mark’s sons Micah and Caleb began helping more often along with Patricia Kemp, who was Mark’s long-time business associate since 2004. Over the summertime, Brennan & Andrew Schultz would also join the team to earn money for school.  

In 2020, the company grew to 60 customers. Patricia joined the company full time and Carl began to assume more of a management role. Mark and Patricia handled all the sales, administrative duties, mowing production, and landscape production. Over the summer, Micah, Caleb, Brennan, Andrew, and Patricia’s daughter Bailey would help. At this point, Bailey and Andrew were in college while Micah, Brennan, and Caleb were still in High School. In 2021 our landscaping & hardscape side of the business began to take off, so we partnered with a subcontractor to help us on weekends. 

In 2022 we grew to 84 maintenance customers and had enough landscaping work to keep our subcontracting partner busy full time. We expanded into more complex projects building water features, patios, large retaining walls, and complex landscape designs. Our landscaping business doubled the side of our maintenance business. All the “kids” continued to help in the summertime and on weekends in the spring/fall. Patricia focused on organizing the business administration department while still working in production. 

In 2023, we grew to over 100 maintenance customers, mostly in Bear Creek. We also doubled the size of our landscaping business in 2022 completing over 97 jobs. Micah and Brennan worked full-time running the maintenance side of the business while going to college full time. Caleb graduated High School and continues to work part-time. Andrew and Bailey also continue to work part-time in between demanding college schedules. Carl turned 80 years old and decided to take more of an advisory role with the company so he could finally retire. For the last 20 years, we have been known as ProTurf Lawn Maintenance. But for 2024, we felt it was time to update our name and brand for the future! NxGen Outdoors represents our multi-generational family business, yet stays true to our vision of service excellence, professional development, and landscape innovation. 

Our company name has changed to NxGen Outdoors Mark's son Micah came up with the name which he believes better reflects who we are. Justin Baker has joined the team as Director of Landscape Production, along with Peter Deschu as a hardscape technician. Peter has 5 years of experience in landscape/hardscape installations, and Justin has 24 years of experience in the landscaping and turf industry, with 12 years of management experience. Caleb is moving into a part-time sales role, Micah and Brennan are running Maintenance Production, and Bailey Kemp has joined our team full-time doing marketing communications after she graduated from Lindenwood University. We are excited to have these fantastic young adults contributing to the company’s legacy of being a quality family service business, we look forward to guiding their development into an exciting future as we build the Next Generation of outdoor services!