Our History

Since 1980 Lawn Chief has been servicing communities in Southeast Iowa with their lawn need, but the conception of Lawn Chief started a few years earlier.

Chuck and Doris Conger lived a few miles outside of Albia where they raised 4 children on their farm. During the early years of the farm the family had their own cow/calf operations where the kids learned about hard work. While being a cattle farmer had its ups and downs, Chuck continued to keep showing up to provide for his family. That was until the year of 1976. The drought that year was so bad that it forced him to sell all of his cows and get out of the cattle business to avoid losing the farm.

He and his two boys, Randy and Jeff, both started helping family friend, John Whipple, out with his agriculture business. Their time at Soil Services was mainly spent drive large sprayers on farm fields to help with weed control and also fertilize. A lot of knowledge came from helping John and Soil Services, but Chuck knew there was market for fertilizing more than just farm fields so he decided to make the move into residential lawns. He started a turf division of Soil Services but soon changed the name to “Lawn Chief”.

Staring in 1980 Chuck took to the streets of Albia, IA to find his first clients.

Jeff went to school at Kirkwood Community Collage in Cedar Rapids, IA. He spent his two years at collage obtaining a degree in Horticulture. After collage he moved to Atlanta, Georgia and started working for a lawn care company by the name TeraGreen. In four short years he went from being a laborer to managing the turf division. While in Atlanta he also met his wife Janice. They moved back to Iowa and got married in 1990.

Jeff and Janice settled down in rural Agency, where they bought a house and started a family. By 1998 they had three children and a growing business. In the year 2000 they made plans with Chuck and Doris to buy Lawn Chief, so proposals were drawn up and agreements were made. This changing of hands brought many new challenges to the company, but Jeff and Janice had a vison of what Lawn Chief would look like someday and set out the bring that vision to reality. After a few years the company started to see new growth with the help of hiring more employees and adding new equipment.

As of 2020 Jeff and Janice are the sole owners of Lawn Chief.