A visit to the Friday Night Music Series convinced Jon Mockabee to move to MH
Published in the December 24, 2014 – January 6, 2014 issue of Morgan Hill Life
By Robert Airoldi
Photo by Marty Cheek
Earthtech Landscaping owner Jon Mockabee in front of one of his work trucks.
From an early age, Jon Mockabee realized he had a passion for business. He’d listen to his father, who arrived in California from Kansas in 1961, relay a host of business ideas, he said. Not all of them were great ideas, but he learned to weed out the bad one and learn from the good ones.
“My dad bought a 76 Union gas station at Taylor and Coleman (avenues) by the airport and opened a equipment rental and the rest is history,” Mockabee said.
Mockabee began his business career while attending San Jose State University. He needed a flexible job so he could attend classes and study, so he started a lawn aerating business. So he and his girlfriend at the time, Kellee (now his wife of 39 years), would pass out flyers advertising the business as part of the college’s self-help program. When customers would ask who they were helping, he said “me.”
“One thing led to another,” he said. “I started doing residential lawns like everybody else but I knew right away I wanted to move into the commercial aspect of the business.”
Thus was born Earthtech, a commercial landscape and maintenance company that has now been in business for more than three decades and employees 35 associates. They take care of shopping centers, multi-family housing complexes and industrial building from Salinas to Sacramento.
He has also owned three equipment rental stores and a construction company for 20 years, and a cut flower business headquartered in Watsonville.
But Mockabee’s passion doesn’t end with the business. It extends to assisting others.
“I have a passion for mentoring young men starting their own business,” he said. “Someone did that for my father in Kansas and I enjoy paying it back.”
Mockabee said he’s helped employees start landscaping, equipment rental, tree pruning, wholesale cut flowers, a closet organizer manufacturing and is now helping a young man open a tennis shop in Morgan Hill.
“I have lost count and there are to many to remember them all,” he said. “I would give them a few books to read first, such as ‘The E Myth,’ and tell them not to see me again until they finished reading it. That helps separate the more serious folks from those less serious. I have had the fortune to be a part of these individual’s lives and witness their business as well as personal growth.”
Mockabee and his wife moved to Morgan Hill in 2007 after a friend invited them to the Friday Night Music Series.
“Having spent my early years in Kansas growing up, I felt at home in Morgan Hill. I fell in love of the community and lifestyle; it reminded me of Kansas,” he said.
In the past nine years, Mockabee and his wife, who have three children and 10 grandchildren, has gotten involved.
Soon after moving to Morgan Hill he got involved with Morgan Hill Leadership, with the Morgan Hill Bible Church Men’s Leadership group, volunteered for KidLead and was the president of the Morgan Hill Tennis Club. He and a couple of others started the group and he’s now the president.
“I’m now a sponsor of the Friday Night Music Series, the Taste of Morgan Hill, in Morgan Hill Rotary, and sponsor charity events for the Citizens Police Academy,” he added.
Moving to Morgan Hill wasn’t only good for his family, it was good for business.
“I moved my business to Morgan Hill in 2012 because I wanted to stop commuting and was able to have a larger facility for the money,” he said. “My employees come mostly from San Jose and since the drive is a reverse commute, they like it even better.”
Mockabee saved his highest praise for the people of Morgan Hill.
“Morgan Hill is the jewel of the South Bay when it comes to living and working and it’s because of its residents,” he said.
