My name is Brett Kallias and I want to be your landscaping contractor, providing Accelerated Green Works, Inc. as your personal ground maintenance firm.

I was raised in Minot, North Dakota, where my grandfather owned and operated a business for 35 years. Watching both my father and grandfather work in a customer-service business helped to develop my interest in establishing a community service business of my own.  Over the years, I have found that there is no greater pleasure than seeing the satisfaction of my customers for a job done well.

My career began when I worked for “Olson’s Landscaping” in Minot, ND, while I was in high school. At Olson’s, I had a teacher who mentored me in all aspects of the landscaping/lawn care company.  In 1998, I decided to open up my own mowing and landscaping business in the Minot area. This successful endeavor continued for four years while I attended college until I graduated with a degree in Construction Engineering from North Dakota State University in 2002.

After graduation from college, I went to work for the ND Department of Transportation (ND DOT) in the Devils Lake District where I continued to work in the transportation industry for 4 years.  The ND DOT provided me with new exposure and job experience while I worked on constructing new bridges and roads across North Dakota.  Even as invigorating as the jobs were, I found there was something missing.  I remembered the pleasure I received from working with people and I missed that interaction.  My mowing and landscaping days were still near and dear to my heart.  It was those memories that drove me back into the business in 2006.

At Accelerated Green Works, Inc., we handle commercial and residential spring and fall clean-up along with weekly mowing, monthly fertilization and weed control, edging, shrub trimming, aeration, sod installation, hydro-turfing, rock installation, landscape block/paver installation, concrete installation, flood cleanup and renovation, snow removal and all your other yard needs.  My father was very particular and that attention to detail seemed to rub-off on me, resulting in a final product much different from most other lawn care specialists.  We do the job “right the first time” and we make sure you are completely satisfied with the finished product before we leave the job site.  You can count on that.  Customer satisfaction with our professional work is our number one priority as we continue to serve the West Fargo, Fargo and Moorhead areas (as well as our recent expansion to the lakes region and western North Dakota).

To be sure we are always on top of new innovations in the landscaping field, we continue to attend classes each winter and early spring to learn about new products available as well as installation techniques and other tips.  I am confident that there is nothing my crew cannot handle.  Since graduation from North Dakota State, I look to them for students in the same program and other engineering fields and hand select my workers to ensure that my clients are always (1) safe, (2) comfortable and (3) happy with their project from start to finish.

Thank you for the opportunity to serve and get to know you!

In late 2019, a property came up for sale on the south side of town. A new dream was born with SheyWest Garden Center. Brett's wife, Jodi Kallias, would design a new retail store in an old home that would become the brick and mortar location for AGW clients to visit as well. Below is a commentary directly from her about the endeavor:

. . .

When I was 7 years old, my favorite pastime was climbing trees and seeing how high I could reach. Sometimes you got to a peak more quickly than you anticipated and realized you were then “stuck”. Other times you thought you could reach the top, no problem, but it turned out to be elusive and took a bit of navigating...some leaps of faith...some broken branches...then you were all of a sudden there.

SheyWest has been a dream building my entire life, although I did not always know it. My parents have owned their own business since I was a small child. They own and operate a small landscape maintenance company in the suburbs of Minneapolis, Minnesota. I saw the struggles and lived them with my parents and siblings. When times were stressful and when hard work paid off. I recognized that being small business owners, my parents made sacrifices that other parents seemed blissfully unaware of, happily ignorant and collecting a paycheck from an employer. And boy was I envious.

I worked for that company for many years. Crawling around in the landscaping beds of homes that had thousands and square feet and more bathrooms than all the family members needed at one time. My parents were deliberate in their teachings and helped me understand that “climbing” in a job environment required many talents, not just quick hands and feet. They helped me set goals and crush them...one by one. The next one on the horizon was a four-year education. Neither of my parents had been through college. Dad went to a trade school for a short time to get formal training for his industry and mom was only able to afford one year of nursing school before life sent her another direction.

I promised myself that if I could get through college, I would try to be one of those parents someday. Remember the ones I mentioned? With a comfy corporate office job, with a big fancy home, a few children and expensive car? I was ready for the challenge and hoped that my children looked up to me for my status and smarts someday (beauty wasn’t something I used in terms describing myself so I should probably rely on those others to hide it).

It seemed that the landscape was something I had gained a decent hold on and understanding of. I needed something fresh and new to learn about. Architecture matched well with my talents and test scores, so I found myself NDSU bound in the Fall 2006. I felt ready for anything. Honor 5 in my senior high school class, with a dorm room address, a few cardboard boxes and wheels to get around...or so I thought. When my parents dropped me off, they did just that. Dropped me off. The car that I had grown accustomed to driving was not mine, and they promptly passed it along to my younger sister to help get her through high school. Dad said, “you’ll be fine.”

That shock sent me into another phase of life, learning to navigate. And if you have not done this (or considered trying it) for your own children, then I would highly recommend you do so. My parents continued to be my foundation and resource, but they had already me the best tool they could to help me tackle these new freedoms, a sense of personal responsibility. And do you want to know something? I was fine. Dad was right.

Before I knew it, I had successfully tackled my way through four years of college and had one year left before that corporate job could happen. Architecture was a 5-year master’s degree program and I made sure I was the very best at it. Straight A’s (ok...one
B grade in third year) and many elective organizations and internship experiences. The resume was what some may consider “perfect”.

In personal life (the one you have outside of books and classes), I was blossoming and celebrating all the blessings God had touched me with. It was fun to have friends and feel wanted. A small piece of me had a nagging feeling that something was off, and I pushed it off as long as I could. In 2009, that changed. One of those personal relationships fell apart and I was alone. I bounced around for the first time, without direction. Without an end goal and unaware of what branch should be tested next.

I had a vision and a direction. And then someone took it away and the light burnt out. Turns out I was less in control of my fate than I had thought. Shortly after that curve ball, I was let go from a job for the first time in my life and officially went from 100 MPH to parked. Enter Brett Kallias in 2010.

I had met Brett during a school interview for a project and called him up. Could he maybe use my help full time? There was nothing else to do but bills still needed to be paid so I had to try. I said a prayer and took a deep breath. “I’ll see you in ten minutes.” This man was going to give me a chance. And I was going to do everything in my power not to let him down. Forever grateful for that unwavering response.

Brett owns a local landscaping company (Accelerated Green Works) and my knowledge integrated well with what he needed at the time. I graduated with my Master of Architecture degree the next spring, bought a house (and my beautiful puppy, Penny) and decided to stay in town for a while. We worked together to build that company from the handful of employees he had to our current headcount of about 30 crew members.

God works in mysterious ways. From a broken branch, I fell onto a larger limb below. I had thought the tree was broken, but little did I know that the windstorm was intentional and sent to direct me on a stronger path. Brett asked me to marry him in 2012 and we exchanged vows in the spring of 2014.

How on earth that was six years ago is beyond me. We now have two beautiful children together. And I believe we both continue to make our parents proud. I often look back on my understanding of the “big kid dream” and have to laugh. Here I am, working alongside my husband to run four companies (we have started a couple of investment companies together along the way) and we are just about to jumpstart a fifth one with SheyWest. For a girl who just wanted to “collect a paycheck” and check out for the weekend, it seems I have strayed back to my roots a bit more than expected.

You know what? I decided I would not have it any other way. In a world that is constantly surprising us and changing every day, we have created a calm place and rely on each other to navigate the new dreams together. We have found independence and freedom that no one can take away. Brett and I each have strengths that balance one another, and we work hard together to take care of our family and extended work family. The crew members have given us their time and talents, so we intend to take care of them for as long as possible. They are the family that we have built, and we are proud of all of it.

The house is big enough. The car is reliable. And we work hard. Every day. To make sure this dream can continue.

If you are considering whether to become an independent owner or not, let me encourage you to try. Examine the numbers and if they make sense, jump in with both feet. Do not let fear discourage you or hold you back. Fear is something that is self-created and need not factor into the equation of success.

If you are one of those people employed by a business, please do not take offense to what I said above. You work hard to earn your paycheck and provide for your family too. And I am still often envious of the life you live for different reasons (fun fact: many of our employees make more than I do each paycheck). Enjoy your peaceful nights at home. Use your free time to say something encouraging to brighten someone’s day who seems to be down. If you have any, teach your child(ren) gratitude and please take time to thank your employer when you can. They have probably worked through incredible challenges to help provide for you and oftentimes stress completely behind the scenes. They may be taking chances and making sacrifices so that your lifestyle can continue uninterrupted.

I am proud to be one of those owners today and excited to present my new endeavor to you. I hope you love it as much as I have loved working to make it a reality. I pray that this is a new beginning for all of us and you find beauty at SheyWest in these unprecedented times. This place is here for all of us to enjoy and celebrate peacefully.

You matter to me and I appreciate and respect you all! Thank you for the compliments and making me feel beautiful. There was a time in my life that I did not realize that was an option for me...

With love and gratitude,

Jodi Lynn (Ziegelman)
Kallias