T and J Lawn Care is located on the corner of Highway 104 and Pawnee Road in Pawnee in a former automotive building. Owned by Jamie Rolland and his father-in-law Todd Williams, they just moved into the building last year. They have decorated the building in their corporate red and green colors.
The T stands for Todd, who Jaimie said, “Does the behind-the-scenes paperwork and such,” and the J stands for Jamie who does the physical labor aspect of the job.
The Rolland and Williams families are very entrepreneurial. Jamie’s wife Tara runs a daycare out of her home. “She has kids from babies to age seven,” Jamie added.
Jamie and Tina have three children, two sons ages 13 and six and a daughter that is soon to be 12.
“This is our sixth season,” Jamie said about T and J Lawn Care. “We work in springtime from sun up to sundown.”
T and J Lawn Care offers residential and commercial lawn care, tree trimming, and in the winter snow removal. Along with the lawn care business, they also offer property maintenance. “We do deck installs, privacy fencing, light tree trimming and light removal. If removals require a bucket truck, we subcontract out.”
Another part of the property maintenance tasks offered include gutter cleaning, power washing, mulch and rock installation and more.
Jamie grew up on a farm and found this kind of work to be his passion. “I’ve been doing this type of work for 23 years. Seventeen of those years were for other companies.”
Opening the business has been a wonderful partnership. “I married into a good family. I have a mother and father-in-law that believe in me.”
With his wife Tina for the past ten years, they have been married for six years. “It has been an amazing ride. When Tina’s parents moved here, we got married and moved here too. We like Pawnee.”
Jamie grew up south of Murrayville, east of Manchester, and north of Roodhouse. “I’m a country boy. I lived with my grandparents’ part of the time.”
Getting started not long after high school Jamie said he got his start working in Sherman at Standerfer Lawn Care. “I grew up on a farm and liked the work and I had a knack for it. I was driving tractors and mowing ditches at ten years old.”
While academics wasn’t his thing, he found that hard work and mechanical jobs were.
He is self-taught and over the years has taught others about the lawn care industry as well. “To learn just takes someone to listen.”
T and J Lawn Care is an award-winning company that prides themselves on their customer care. “We just won the State Journal Register Reader’s Choice Award. We also were the first runner up in the Illinois Times Readers Choice Award,” Jamie added.
Taking pride in their work is a big part of what made them an award-winning company. “Lawn Care and Property Maintenance is expensive, so we pride ourselves on giving people what they pay for. It is nice to pull away from a property and say, ‘We just did that”.
The company works all over Central Illinois and while Jamie said he is not actively taking on new jobs, he will accept work in the Village of Pawnee because he would like to spend less time on the road and more in town where he lives and works. “Right now, we go all over central Illinois, it is profitable. We are all the way in Jacksonville and Petersburg.”
To contact T and J Lawn Care, call 217-899-3420 or 217-891-6875. Check out their Facebook page at (4) T&J Lawn Care And Home Services | Facebook.