BERLIN – It’s the end of an era for Danny and Mary Moore.
For the long-time Berlin couple, their professional lives over the last 60-plus years have focused on operating The Moore Companies, a full-scale landscaping and lawn care company based in Berlin and founded by Daniel S. Moore, Sr., Danny’s father, in 1962.
On April 14, the Moore’s sold their family business to Chester River Landscaping, a family-owned business with a 200-acre nursery in Chestertown that offers services all over the Delmarva Peninsula. The company had been looking to enter the coastal Worcester County market for some time after establishing a presence in Delaware recently.
Throughout the company’s history, The Moore Companies has handled lawn care and landscaping services for the Town of Ocean City, dozens of regional public and private schools, Salisbury University, University of Maryland, U.S. Navy athletic fields, Assateague Island National Seashore, U.S. Coast Guard Station, U.S. Post offices in Salisbury, Cambridge and Centreville, Tidal Health, Atlantic General Hospital, the Fort Washington Community Hospital, The Parke in Ocean Pines, the Ocean Pines Association, Hidden Harbour in Ocean City, Mallards Lakes in Fenwick Island, Bethany Bay in Millville and numerous homeowner associations through the region. At the time of its sale last month, the company had grown tremendously since its modest roots.
Early Modest Roots
Moore Sod Farm was started after the historically destructive Ash Wednesday Storm of 1962. The storm ravaged the mid-Atlantic coast from March 5-9, 1962. In the storm’s immediate wake of destruction was an urgency amongst businesses to rebuild and get ready for the summer season, including preparing the grounds of hotels and other tourism-based businesses for visitors. A local farmer, Moore, Sr. was looking to help and started selling sod to address the emergency associated with numerous damaged lawns around the island. After borrowing a sod cutter from the then-Ocean City Golf and Yacht Club, Moore Sr. went about meeting the need and established Moore’s Sod Farms, which began to grow high-quality grass sod. Over time, the business evolved into general landscape construction with commercial and residential clients.
“My father had a dairy farm, and he always had several jobs. He started this business in 1962 when people needed to have lawns due to the March storm,” Danny Moore said. “Back then places like the Surf and Sands Motel had lawns in between the building and Boardwalk. They needed to quickly get their places back in shape and they knew if they tried to seed it, it wasn’t going to be fully mature when people started visiting Ocean City.”
At this time, Danny Moore had just graduated from the University of Maryland with a degree in Agriculture. He joined the U.S. Navy after college and stayed for four years. While a student at Maryland, he met his future wife, Mary, but it was in the summer of 1961 when a true connection was made at Danny’s lifeguard stand in Ocean City. On Aug. 4, 1962, Danny and Mary married and honeymooned for a week in Rehoboth Beach, Del. The couple celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary last summer. It would become clear 1962 was an important year for the Moore’s personally and professionally.
The Moore’s spent their early years together living in Montgomery County while Danny worked in the Navy on a diving vessel and Mary in an art gallery. After leaving the Navy, the couple returned to Berlin and began working in the family business, then Moore’s Sod Farm, in 1965 under his father.
Moore said he was “the low man on the totem pole” in those days working with his father. “So many of the guys I have hired over the years I have told them, ‘if you complain about anything I want you do in this business, I want you to know I have done it all, don’t complain about it,’” Moore said. “I have done the worst job in this business and did it for many years until I got moved up the ladder. It was so primitive when we first started out in the sod business. It’s always been a lot of physical work, but it was so much different when I first got started.”
Moore worked with his dad until 1973 when he purchased the business, adding a number of additional services like lawn care, landscape lighting, shrub and tree care and irrigation installation and service. In 1994, the company changed the name to The Moore Companies, which better represented the full scope of the services offered by the business.
“Once we got out of the sod business and no longer grew sod, it didn’t make sense to continue as is,” Moore said. “The new name better represented everything we did and how we morphed over the years.”
Changing Times
As with any small business, especially in recent years with inflation and economic changes, challenges have arisen. Mary Moore has typically handled the business side of the operation while Danny managed the field and oversaw everything.
“Danny has built up a great business over all these years. We have been blessed with a great foreman and have had some really wonderful people to work with us,” she said.
Moore said operating a business is harder today than ever with many obstacles resulting in increasing expenses that must be met to continue operations.
“Over the last few years, I started seeing these concerning trends in business. Every single town we go in we have to pay $250 just to go in and do business. The fuel, the fees, the regulations – all these things together got me concerned and at our ages it was becoming stressful,” Mary Moore said. “Starting a few years ago, it became so hard to find labor and keep people. We became very aware of a changing economy and there were many signs over recent years that all culminated in us being where we are today.”
Throughout their business life, Mary Moore said it was important for her and her husband to hire fine people with morals to represent them. It’s why their employees always wore uniforms and drove company trucks. She said all employees were also drug tested before her husband would even considering hiring them.
“He would say go to 10th Street and get drug tested and then we can talk about pay the job. We couldn’t have any of that,” she said. “When our trucks show up to your HOA or your business, we wanted our people to have uniforms on with their names on them. If they weren’t fluent in English, they would give the person Danny’s business card and say call the office. Maybe this is just us and our era. It was terribly important to us that whoever was on your property that you knew they were professional and you were safe. I believe that you feel good about yourself if you look good. For us that was the khaki pants, belts on, collared shirt with name on it. To me that image was just as much about us as our customers in this day and age. It was important to Danny and I that our customers felt secure and we never had a problem with anyone.”
‘A Period Of Adjustment’
Today, the Moore’s are adapting to a new normal after 61 years of working on some aspect of their business just about each day. Over the years, it was common to see Danny Moore out on a job site amid yellow company trucks with shovel and wheelbarrow in tow. Conversely, it was a frequent sight to see Mary Moore’s car in front of the company’s office at night within the BroadMoore building in Berlin the couple constructed years ago.
“It’s very, very strange. This is going to take a while to adjust. I still wake up every day thinking I need to check the weather to direct the crews or do this or that,” Danny Moore said. “It’s a period of adjustment after all these years. I still look at the weather every day.”
Mary added, “everyday was always just get up and get to work, talk to people, get payroll done, pay the bills. People ask me, ‘how’s retirement?’ Well, it’s not started yet because we still have bills from March and April when we were operating. Danny is retired and I am happy for him. It’s close for me.”
Mary was reflective as she looked back on her and her husband’s business over the last 60 years.
“Danny built up a great business over all these years. I am really proud of him,” she said. “He’s a very humble man, he’s always been that way, like nothing is a big deal, but it’s a big deal. I really am proud of him and us really. We tried to do everything with integrity. We have a lot to be proud of, especially with our kids, too, who grew up answering the phone at home saying the company name as kids.”
According to Mary and Danny Moore, talk of selling the business began organically through their four adult children who huddled together in recent years, encouraging their parents to pursue sale opportunities.
“Alex, Ann, Elizabeth and Maureen were all involved in this process, and each one of them had their own unique interest and expertise in working together to make this thing happen,” Danny Moore said. “They were a tremendous help along the way. They really wanted everything to turn out great for us. They felt it was time for us. They helped a lot.”
During an interview Monday, Mary Moore became emotional talking about her family and reflecting on the journey of owning and operating a family business. The interview took place in Danny’s office, which features a large scheduling wall with old notes from his granddaughters in the corners and family pictures throughout the room.
Mary Moore said an aspect that brings her tremendous pride is the fact they were able to send their four kids – Ann, Alex, Elizabeth and Maureen — to then-Worcester Country School throughout their upbringings and on to college without any of them incurring student debt. Danny Moore was one of a small group of founding members of the now Worcester Preparatory School over 50 years ago. Ann lives in Rehoboth Beach, Del. as does Alex. Elizabeth lives in New York City and Maureen is a resident of Portland, Ore.
“To this day, our kids say thank you Mom and Dad for everything and tell us how many of their friends today are still paying off their student debt,” Mary Moore. “It gets me emotional because we are proud. They tell us, ‘thank you so much, you all did everything for us.’ Now we get to see them living their lives …”
Though the new owner is now serving all of The Moore Companies’ previous contracts and customers, the Moore’s have an entire inventory of lawn care equipment, from the large to the small, scheduled to be auctioned through Pete Richardson Auction Sales on Sunday, June 11 at 8 a.m. The auction will place at 35640 Woodyard Road, Willards, Md. 21874.
