EDITOR'S NOTE: Face Time is a monthly feature profiling local business people in a first-person format.

Anaheim to Yakima at an early age

I was born in Anaheim (Calif.) . My parents moved here when I was 3. I went to school at Nob Hill, Franklin, Eisenhower and YVC and Central. I never got my four-year degree because my business kind of evolved as a means to an end.

I have two sisters. I'm a middle child. One lives here in Yakima. The other lives in the Seattle area.

In high school, I was never really driven. I knew I liked business. I've always been an entrepreneur. I sold greeting cards as a kid. I had a paper route for a while. I got into selling fireworks. As a 14-, 15-, 16-year-old, I made a lot of money buying and selling fireworks.

In high school, I wasn't involved in sports. My prior sport was Motocross. I used to love racing cycles. I did that through my youth years. In high school, I wasn't super involved. Probably my claim to fame in high school was that senior year I rode my motorcycle down the hall -- you know, senior prank stuff, me and another guy.

I was an average student. I loved things like psychology, philosophy, religion, theology. I still study a lot. Bible study I'm really big on.

Mowing lawns and branching out

I started mowing lawns for Groenig Developments, the company that developed Lake Aspen.

I mowed lawns for them for a few years while I was in high school. Then I went away out of state to college for a very brief period. When I came back, they had replaced me with some lawn care companies.

At that point, I decided to do this on my own.

I started mowing lawns and going to YVC and developed a business back in about 1980. I kept developing it under a different name and it grew to the point where I had several people working for me. I was commuting to Central, and in 1985, I made the determination that this is a viable career.

In 1985, I changed the name to Colonial Lawn & Garden.

Our real specialty is full-service lawn care. By that, I mean we have contracts where we provide a full line of services. Mow the lawn, fertilize, take care of the weeds, the whole nine yards.

If they need a sprinkler system, we'll put in an underground sprinkler system.

In 1986, we started doing lawn care where we were spraying and doing insect control. The full package really started in 1986.

Today, we have more than 30 employees.

Central location, more room to roam

This location (1118 W. Washington Ave.) is a location we've only had for two years and the idea was to be centrally located. We've been operating for the past decade-plus way out at 15670 Tieton Drive.

We had been looking for the past several years for a centralized location. This parcel became available. It closed (escrow) in the spring of 2007. We've got 11 acres here where we only had two acres before.

Also, we have a storefront where people can come and pay their bills, sign up for services and we can service the accounts from here.

Brian Gibson is our general manager. He really runs the day-to-day operations. That's his primary focus. I'm still involved in sales, meeting new customers.

It takes up a lot of what I do. But I'm still a problem solver when it comes to technical things in the field. Tree problem or lawn problem, I'm still the go-to guy who goes out and checks those things out.

We'll cut 140 lawns a week. And when it comes to the various other services, we've got hundreds per week.

Lawn care from A to Z

My philosophy is that with professional lawn care, it darn well better look better. At the end of the day, whether it's mowing the lawn or whatever service we're providing, it's got to be professional. It's got to stand out. It's got to be better than what you can do as a homeowner or better than our competition can do.

Our latest tagline that we use for advertising is "Experience the Colonial Difference." It means lawns with nice straight lines, real clean edging. When we leave, we blow off everything to where there's no debris left out. If it's our lawn care division where we're fertilizing lawns -- the lawn's got to be green, healthy and as near weed-free as it can be.

The other side is customer service. If a customer has an issue, a need, or even a complaint, the way it's handled by our staff is important. They're not going to get an answering machine. They're going to talk to a live person. And we're going to call them back in a timely fashion. Those are the kinds of things that we do that make us stand out.

It's providing the total care package for people. Today, we have mom and dad both working or single parent homes or people with more leisure time. People work hard all week, they come home on the weekend, they don't want to worry about their weeds or their lawn mowing. The niche really is to provide complete, full-service landscape care. That's what we strive for.

Having the best lawn on the block doesn't come by chance. It comes by a systematic, professional approach to get to where you want to be.

Moving back home -- literally

Today, I live in the house that my parents once bought. After my wife and I got married -- and her mom had just passed away -- we ended up moving into her house, the house that she grew up in. We lived there for what we thought would be just a couple of years and we ended up living there for over 10 years. And then we bought my parents' house in 1999. We moved from the house that she grew up in into the house that I grew up in. It's kind of weird.

Our home was built in the '20s. It's an old Tudor home. I love the old-quality construction -- just the charm that old has.

The thing that got me was seeing the Realtor sign on my house. I just couldn't let somebody buy my house, so I made a deal with my dad and it worked out.

-- As told to Assistant City Editor Scott Mayes

Lance Forsee

AGE: 48.

BUSINESS VENTURE: Owner of Colonial Lawn & Garden.

CONTACT: 509-966-1655 or www.coloniallawn.com. The office is at 1118 W. Washington Ave. in Yakima.

EDUCATION: Graduated from Eisenhower High School in 1979.

PERSONAL: Forsee and his wife, Karla, have been married 22 years and have two sons, Erik, 15, and Christian, 11. He is on the board of directors for the Yakima Area Arboretum and is an elder at Community Alliance Church.