Mission Statement
Our goal is to provide our customers with sound agronomic advice and back up the advice with quality professional services. We will use the latest technology, methods, and machinery to attain the goal of exceeding our customers' expectations. We specialize in maintaining turfgrass used for any and all sporting events. By creating a flexible pricing structure, we will provide services for facilities even with limited resources.
About Us
About PGMS:
Current Sports Field and Maintenance Customers in the Houston Area Include:
About the Owner
About the Owner John Braun
Professional Grounds Management Services was created in August 1999 by its owner John Braun. John spent the prior 17 years in the golf course maintenance business and received a Bachelor of Science Degree in Agronomy from Texas A&M in 1992. Upon graduation, John continued his position of Assistant Golf Course Superintendent at Champions Golf Club, Houston. During his tenure as Assistant, the club hosted the 19991 United States Amateur Golf Tournament. While John spent most of his golf maintenance career at Champions, he additionally served two internship terms at Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, where he worked two PGA tour events. During his tenure at Champions, John worked three PGA Tour Championship Tournaments. In 1994 John accepted the Gold Course Superintendent position at Braeburn Country Club, Houston. During his tenure at Braeburn, the club successfully hosted the Texas State Amateur tournament.
In 1997 John became a Certified Golf Course Superintendent (CGCS) with the Gold Course Superintendents Association of America. Becoming a CGCS involved completing an extensive continuing education program, a complete peer review, and a 6-hour written examination. At the time, only 10% of all Gold Course Superintendents in the country had achieved this certification. John has also attained the licenses needed for this particular business, including a pesticide license from the Texas Department of Agriculture and an irrigators license from the Texas Department On Environmental Quality.
In January 1999, John's first daughter was born, and he quickly realized an opportunity in his life to take advantage of a chance to start his own company. There was an obvious void in the landscaping market, in which there were no companies specializing in sports field maintenance. For the first year and a half, the company was operated out of John's garage, and it was started from basically nothing. The first big customers were the University of Houston, Texas Southern University, and St. Vincent DePaul School. The business quickly expanded to where we now service many of the more popular private schools in and around the Houston area. In 2005, we expanded our services to include sports field construction, and we have provided major sports field construction services at The John Cooper School, The Woodlands; Texas A&M University, College Station; Strake Jesuit College Preparatory School, Houston, and others, In 2005 our company became a local supplier of Diamond Pro baseball products. Diamond Pro allowed the company the opportunity to expand more into the baseball infield renovation business.
The next expansion opportunity came in 2007 when we started providing professional application services for golf courses. This was an opportunity for John to get back into the gold course business without being tied down to one golf course. The first two years were spent exclusively providing spray applications, and in 2009 we started making bulk fertilizer applications using a bulk application truck that was purchased that year. We provide professional application services all over the State of Texas. Our clients in the golf business include some of the top courses in the State of Texas.
Professional Grounds Management Services LLC is continually evolving each year, and we now currently employ approximately 22 full-time crew members. We are constantly seeking employees who are driven to provide quality professional service to our customers.