Phil Howard

Phil works as an estimator and project manager, having joined us in 2017. Phil is involved in costing, planning, and procurement stages. Then he ultimately manages the projects with Dan. He works together with Dan and our entire design team to deliver the gardens we envisage, and the clients expect.  Phil enjoys the planning process and working with all of our clients, contractors, and sub-contractors to deliver our outstanding gardens. He also has an in-depth knowledge of the industry and extensive hands-on experience to be able to think around problems that are always encountered.

Phil has over 20 years of experience in the landscaping industry and brings that expertise to CGLA having previously worked for several high-end landscaping companies. He is always ready to overcome any and all challenges that present themselves and recognises that every project is a chance to learn a new skill.

ACHIEVEMENTS

Phil has managed and been involved in building numerous award-winning gardens throughout his career to date. He has also worked in a number of prestigious gardens and for a host of celebrities, diplomats, and other high-end clients in his time. He has experience of working at both Chelsea flower show and Hampton Court flower show during his on-site career and won a best display award at Chelsea for a shop stand he built.

Phil ultimately believes that the greatest praise isn’t in the form of awards but is that the clients are blown away by the end results and that their expectations are exceeded.

CAREER TO DATE

Phil fell into landscaping straight out of school with a small company based in Watford. He started working on all manor of different sized projects in the north London area. Starting out as a labourer, hand mixing concrete, splitting stone, humping and bumping materials for his foreman. He quickly started picking up vital hands-on experience of brick work, paving, fencing, decking and soft landscaping which helped cement the basics of the trade.

After leaving this small firm, he moved to a high-end landscaping company based in Chelsea as a team leader. This position introduced him to the highest of expectations from clients, as he was working for celebrities, aristocracy and even the occasional embassy.

From there Phil moved to another well-known company based in Hertfordshire where he was employed as a foreman. Overseeing projects for the inhouse designers and also numerous very well-known garden designers and landscape architects. Again, this position gave him the opportunity to work on a varying array of high-end gardens and build more and more experience on domestic and commercial work.

Once Phil felt he had gained enough experience he set up his own small business, designing and constructing gardens for himself. Again, through this venture he learned another side of the landscaping industry, management. Through working for himself, he learned to source work and materials, price projects, manage accounts and oversee projects from start to finish.

After a successful spell of around 6 years, he decided it was time for a new challenge. This is where he found CGLA. After a short adjustment period he was overseeing projects of varying sizes. He has managed simple in and out jobs, to multi-million-pound projects lasting between 12-24 months.

Phil is now more involved in the pricing, procurement and project set up side of the business, but still manages projects and helps out the rest of the project management team.

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