Tag Archive for: Greentech

Greentech moves to Employee Ownership

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Greentech moves to Employee Ownership: Leading sports surface specialists, Greentech Sportsturf Ltd has set up an Employee Ownership Trust to hold 100% of the leading sports and recreational surfaces firm and put it into the hands of the people who work for it – making them the direct beneficiaries of the company’s future success.

Started in 1998 by Kevin Brunton, Hugh Murray, and the late Tom Brannan (who sadly passed away in 2015) the company has grown successfully over the years and has worked on world-renowned fields of play such as Gleneagles, St Andrew’s Links, Hampden Park and Murrayfield Stadium. With Hugh Murray now retired the Directors wanted to look at an ownership succession option which secured the long-term future of the business, its employees and would work well for both clients and founders too. The co-founders were keen to avoid the potential pitfalls of traditional trade sale or merger options, keenly aware of the risks these options can present to employees and the business as a whole.  They saw many advantages to employee ownership and believe that it is the ‘win-win’ proposition for everyone – founders, employees and clients.

Greentech moves to Employee Ownership

Greentech moves to Employee Ownership

“The establishment of employee ownership through the EOT at Greentech Sportsturf will provide continued job security for all staff,” said Kevin Brunton. “It will also enable the employees to have collective control of their future, directly benefit from the ongoing success of the business and to continue to deliver market-leading projects in the design, construction, renovation and maintenance of sports surfaces.”

Employee ownership is growing significantly in popularity, with more and more companies seeing the benefits that can be delivered through this ownership model. Studies have demonstrated that employee owned firms are also more resilient and are proven to weather economic cycles better than most. This may prove to be important as firms the world-over deal with the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

Eric Carroll, Financial Controller at Greentech Sportsturf, commented: “I’m delighted that Kevin and Hugh have chosen this option for ownership of the business and I think this is great news for all the staff at Greentech Sportsturf. Everyone one of us now has a stake in the business and can share in the success and profits that are made going forward.”

Kevin Brunton believes that employee ownership is good news for clients too and will help to secure the long-term future of the company. “Employee ownership means clients need not be concerned with Greentech Sportsturf being acquired and the potential associated disruption that can lead to. They can feel secure in the knowledge we will continue to deliver the highest quality sports surfaces projects with our talented team of people and the best technologies for the job in hand.” Said Kevin. “It also gives the co-founders the opportunity to consider retirement and eventual exit from the business in a planned manner, mentoring the successor team whilst withdrawing slowly and ensuring continued growth and success. It really is a win-win all round.”

Greentech Sportsturf is a Scotland-based, leading sports turf contractor, specialising in the design, construction and renovation of all sports surfaces. The company has a diverse client base comprising world renowned fields of play including St Andrews and Gleneagles Golf Courses, Scotland’s national football and rugby stadiums, as well as smaller and regional sports facilities. Located on the outskirts of Stirling at Throsk, the company operates throughout the UK.

For further information contact Eric Carroll on mailto:eric@greentechsportsturf.co.uk

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Clean Sweep For Greentech And GKB

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Clean Sweep For Greentech And GKB: St Andrew’s’ University Park is well known for its grass pitches being among the finest in Scotland, winning high praise from visiting professionals. With such a reputation to live up to it’s vital the synthetic pitches are maintained to equally high standards.

University Park called on the specialist services of Throsk based Greentech Sportsturf and their GKB equipment for that purpose. The 3G rubbercrumb pitch, constructed in 2012, is a full size, floodlit, FIFA 2 Star World Rugby approved Third Generation synthetic pitch, used for rugby, football, ultimate Frisbee and lacrosse as well as a venue for regular club fixtures. The Park’s sand dressed pitch is used as a training and match venue for a number of sports clubs, including hockey and football, and is home to a number of community sports programes and weekly sports leagues.

Clean Sweep For Greentech And GKB

A programme of consistent high quality pre-season maintenance is essential and Greentech undertook decompaction and deep cleaning of the surfaces using a GKB Quick Clean for powerful in-depth cleaning and removal of coarse dirt, small stone particles and loose fibres. The synthetic turf brush casts contaminated infill material onto a vibrating screen for removal to a collection container, while dust and fibres are absorbed by a suction unit to a dust bag.

“We use, in conjunction with the Quick Clean, a GKB Rotobrush with its extra rigid bristles for deep compaction and that loosens up the infill for us.” Says Ewan Peddie, Greentech Synthetic Turf Manager. “Then we run our Quick Clean over the surface, taking out any contamination from the playing surface, as well as extracting any loose fibres.” Moss and algae settlements are often most persistent around the edges of synthetic sports pitches. These pose the danger of a slippery surface for players and the Rotobrush also tackles the problem extremely effectively.

Clean Sweep For Greentech And GKB

“We were pleased to be called in by St Andrews for their maintenance programme,” add Ewan, “and equally so for Dundee United FC, where we carried out similar treatment for their 3G rubber crumb training pitch in October, to get it to a standard ready for FIFA approval.”

For more information, visit: www.gkbmachines.com

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Greentech Goes For GKB

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Greentech Goes For GKB: Greentech Sportsturf is one of Scotland’s leading sports turf contractors and specialists in design, construction , renovation and maintenance of sports surfaces. There’s an impressive list of fields of play the company has worked on, including Gleneagles, Hampden Park and Oriam sports performance centre. It follows then there is a need for quality equipment which is right for the job when you’re maintaining sports turf, both natural and synthetic, across Scotland and handling projects throughout the UK and Ireland. Greentech invested in two GKB machines, the Quick Clean and Rotobrush after seeing them at the Saltex exhibition and following demonstrations set up by Tom Shinkins, Operations Manager at GKB.

“We looked at the whole market in synthetic turf cleaners and renovators but in the end it wasn’t hard to choose. The GKB machines are far and away a quality build and do the job they’re designed to do better than the others we tested.” Says Greentech’s Synthetic Turf Manager, Ewan Peddie. Due to the weather conditions Greentech had to wait until early May before being able to start treating synthetic surfaces and the machines have endured a punishing schedule in the catch-up.

Greentech Goes For GKB

The GKB Quick Clean has been noted for its powerful in-depth cleaning of all types of synthetic turf pitches Greentech have been working on. It’s easily hitched and the synthetic turf brush casts infill material and contamination onto a vibrating screen. Coarse dirt is removed to a collection container while dust and other lightweight dirt is absorbed by a suction unit with a dust bag. The result is a quality finish after cleaning at high speed with a reliable machine that is fully height adjustable.

Brushing the edges of synthetic turf pitches is important and generally it’s where the most persistant contamination will be found in the form of moss and algae settlement. Greentech put their GKB Rotobrush to work with good effect from the extra rigid bristles and report a deeper, more effective brush in areas where normal brushing and cleaning are not sufficient. They found the Rotobrush ideal for working with and restoring the technical characteristics of the synthetic surfaces they were cleaning, while removing the contamination.

“We’re constantly moving around covering maintenance on synthetic sports surfaces of a wide variety, from Local Authorities, to schools and main sports venues,” says Ewan, “and the GKB machines are ideal, especially for the speed at which we need to work.”

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