It’s Throwback Thursday, and with 40+ years of Advance Plants behind us, we’ve got plenty to look back on. Since 1982, we’ve been one of the names Brisbane businesses turn to for indoor plant hire, and having staff who’ve stuck around for 20 or 30 years isn’t unusual for us. It’s just what happens when people find work they genuinely enjoy.
The business has changed a lot since then. A new owner, a new look, a bigger team, even the van out front doesn’t look like it used to. But the thing that’s stayed constant is the people who keep showing up.
Damion has been with Advance Plants for 30 years. Vicki has been with us for 22. We sat down with both of them to find out what’s kept them here this long.
Damion: 30 years, one job ad, no regrets
Damion was studying Certificate II in Horticulture when he applied for a job advertised in the Gold Coast Bulletin. He didn’t get it.
“I didn’t get that position but I continued to check in regularly until something came up.”
Something came up. Thirty years later, he’s still here.
What’s actually changed
Two things, mainly. Indoor plant hire has moved from a handful of pot plants in a foyer to green walls and large-scale indoor plantscapes, a shift Damion has watched with genuine interest rather than nostalgia for the old way.
He’s been part of building some of those installations himself, and it’s clearly the change he finds most exciting to talk about and be a part of. New equipment, new techniques, new types of projects. It’s all just more of the variety that hooked him in the first place.
“I loved the freedom of working outside and the variety of work and different places has kept me interested and motivated over the years.“
Why he’s stayed
Damion puts it down to a team that’s fun, professional and genuinely supportive to work with. His take on the old saying about grass being greener on the other side: it doesn’t apply when the team on your own side works well together to keep things thriving.
Vicki: 22 years, no filing cabinets required
Vicki moved to Queensland from Tasmania in September 2004. Two weeks later she interviewed for an Admin Manager role in a site shed at Gilston. No hot water, a porta-loo, and a good conversation with then-owner Nick. She started the following week and never left.
Back then, the office ran on faxes, paper trails and filing cabinets stacked floor to ceiling, a world away from the cloud-based systems and instant Slack messages Vicki relies on today. It’s a fitting reminder of just how far the business, and the technology behind it, has come in 22 years.
Two crises and one ownership change
Nick moved up from Sydney and, having always been passionate about plants, took the leap to start an indoor plant hire company when the industry was still in its infancy. Over almost 40 years he built Advance Plants from the ground up, winning clients like Westfield and earning a reputation for outstanding, reliable service.
Rob bought Advance Plants in November 2019. Where Nick had built a strong foundation and a loyal client base, Rob came in with a plan to grow it further.
The timing wasn’t kind: hard COVID lockdowns hit four months later, right as he was still finding his feet running a plant hire company for the first time. He backed the business through it with confidence, and it’s been growing ever since.
Vicki spent a month working alone in the office before Rob suggested she work from home. Her first reaction was practical, not sentimental.
“I didn’t think that was even a remote possibility because where would I put all of my filing cabinets!! Turns out … I don’t need filing cabinets.”
A day in the life
For the first 20 years of her career, Vicki was the entire admin function for the business. As the client base doubled, she became more efficient and adopted new systems to keep providing outstanding support to the team. A typical day starts with email, moves into invoicing and reconciling bank transactions, and runs through Slack requests in between. Payroll, end-of-month invoicing, end-of-month payments and a mid-month billing run take up the rest of the calendar. Some of our biggest clients include Westfield, Australian Retirement Trust, and Brisbane City Council.
“I feel good when I know that the job has been done right, especially if what I have done has made someone else’s day a little easier.”
Outside of the office, Vicki has a pretty amazing claim to fame. In 1981 and 1982, she was a cheerleader for the Western Suburbs Magpies (now the Wests Tigers). Having danced her whole life, it felt like a natural fit, and she remembers those years fondly, from training sessions with the squad to celebrating at the Wests Leagues Club after home games. She even got to cheer at the grand finals, training for months to perform a big group dance at half-time. These days, she’s a proud NSW supporter who gets right into the office banter every time State of Origin rolls around.
Why she’s stayed
For Vicki, it comes down to loving the work, the people and the company in equal measure and knowing, after 22 years, exactly how rare that combination is.
When Rob first came on board, Vicki admits she wasn’t entirely convinced. To her, he seemed like a young whippersnapper still finding his feet. Watching the results he drove and the way he led the team, she came around completely, and today counts herself as one of his biggest supporters.
Growing alongside the business
Since Vicki and Damien joined, the business has grown well beyond what either of them could have imagined back in that site shed at Gilston. Revenue has more than doubled over the last decade, the customer base has more than doubled, and the team has almost doubled – proof that the same values that have kept Vicki and Damion around this long are exactly what’s driving that growth today.
Experience you can count on
Not many businesses survives a GFC, a pandemic and an ownership change while holding onto staff who started before most of those things happened. Damion and Vicki have.
Here’s to 30 years, 22 years, and the rest of the team getting there too.
Want to work with a team that sticks around?
That kind of consistency is exactly what you’re hiring when you bring us onto your site. Request a quote today!
