Episode 173 – On The World Stage: The FIFA World Cup Turf Project

The podcast by project managers for project managers. The FIFA World Cup is the biggest sporting event in the world. With billions of people tuning in to view the games, we wondered if anyone noticed the grass! In this unique project story, John Holmes explains how he navigated the selection process and became the exclusive supplier of turfgrass for the 2022 FIFA World Cup. We share the planning, logistics, challenges, constraints and lessons learned in this remarkable project. Table of Contents 02:18 … Meet John03:41 … Atlas Turf Production05:22 … Sustainable Solutions06:53 … The Bid for The FIFA World Cup Turf09:23 … Transporting the Turf11:46 … Project Coordination and Planning14:12 … Kevin and Kyle15:41 … Project Budget16:57 … Project Timeline18:47 … Biggest Risk Factor19:39 … Collaborations and Cultural Differences21:43 … Government Restrictions22:38 … Lessons Learned23:56 … Soccer vs. Golf Turf25:52 … Leadership Advice from John27:30 … Find out More28:33 … Closing JOHN HOLMES: I’ve been really fortunate to travel to some very unique places.  And it’s really helped me grow as a person, and meeting folks from different cultures, nationalities, different beliefs than me.  But at the end of the day, everybody’s a human being and has the same struggles, similar struggles.  I try to be very respectful, too.  And I think that’s so important when you’re dealing with different cultures.  Well, at the end of the day in a business deal, everybody’s trying to get to the same point and having a successful project.  And figuring out a way to do it without animosity, without any issues is so important and makes things go very smoothly. WENDY GROUNDS:  You’re listening to Manage This, the podcast for project managers by project managers.  My name is Wendy Grounds, and with me in the studio is Bill Yates and our engineer, Danny Brewer.  We love having you join us twice a month to be motivated and inspired by project stories, leadership lessons, and advice from industry experts from all around the world; and we love to bring you some support as you navigate your projects.  You can also claim free Professional Development Units from PMI by listening to our show.  Listen up at the end of the show for advice on how to do that. Now, Bill, we have an interesting conversation with John Holmes today. BILL YATES:  Yes. WENDY GROUNDS:  He’s from Atlas Turf.  Atlas Turf produced the grass for some of the world’s premier golf associations.  And I love the story that he was responsible for the turf that was used in the 2022 FIFA World Cup. BILL YATES:  Isn’t that amazing, yeah.  And he happens to be – their company is headquartered here in Georgia.  But he has delivered product and solutions all over the globe.  He’s had a lot of personal travel.  I’d like to see his passport and see some of the stamps in that. WENDY GROUNDS:  And he also has been in places like Sri Lanka, Mauritius, the Maldives, New Caledonia, Seychelles.  It’s all over the world into very interesting places he’s taking his grass. BILL YATES:  That’s true.  He delivers.  WENDY GROUNDS:  Hi, John.  Welcome to Manage This.  Thank you so much for joining us today. JOHN HOLMES:  So glad to be here and able to share our unique story. Meet John WENDY GROUNDS:  Have you always worked with turf?  What was your career path? JOHN HOLMES:  I have a degree in turf grass management.  But my career started when I was a teenager working on the local golf course in our town.  And in doing so I discovered that you could actually go to college and get a degree in managing turf grass, and I did that and became a golf course superintendent, managing the turf grass on a golf course, almost 32 years ago. BILL YATES:  How about that.  So you’ve been working with grass for 30-something years.  And then how did you come to Atlas, you know, what was that transition? JOHN HOLMES:  My career as a golf course superintendent took me and my wife to Mexico and the Philippines, managing golf courses.  And eventually I landed back here in the United States working for a turf farm as a salesperson.  And we created a unique business of exporting turf grass.  We didn’t invent the process, but we somewhat perfected it.  And then as the recession came along, the great recession in 2008-2009, I essentially bought the business from the company I was working with and created Atlas Turf.  And we set off, took off running in 2011. Atlas Turf Production WENDY GROUNDS:  Where are your turf products produced?  Where do you grow the grass? JOHN HOLMES:  So our core business is exporting turf grass stolons or sprigs.  And they’re grown in South Georgia, in Adel, Georgia; and in Camden, South Carolina at two different turf farms.  And we’ll get into that process, sure, in a little while.  We also have a seed company based just south of Portland, Oregon. BILL YATES:  You are located in LaGrange; is that right?  LaGrange, Georgia? JOHN HOLMES:  LaGrange, Georgia, yup, just southwest of Atlanta. BILL YATES:  For some I think they know it as LaGrange.  Those are for the fancy folks.  It’s amazing to me, I mean, what caught our attention was we started reading about Atlas Turf and the impact that your company was having all over the world.  Your turf is showing up in these huge projects, like the World Cup.  And it really brought attention.  But it’s not all about sporting fields.  You guys have a whole line of different products that meet different needs.  So describe a bit about those different products and how they’re being applied. JOHN HOLMES:  Our company in earnest starting providing turf grass solutions to golf courses in very difficult locations.  And when I say “difficult,” places where water quantity was a challenge, water quality was a challenge.  And we had products that would grow in those conditions.  But challenging for both the customer and us was getting the product to those unique, sometimes far out of the way locations.  And we really started our business hitting those obscure markets and just kind of grew into the business that we are today. Sustainable Solutions WENDY GROUNDS:  I was looking at your website.  I was very interested in some of the products that you do produce.  And I saw that you also, other than golf courses and sports fields and turf for soccer, you also have products that are solutions for erosion, reclaiming land, and those type of issues.  Can you tell us a little bit about that, and the grasses you produce for that? JOHN HOLMES:  Yeah, so we have a turf grass.  The scientific  name is paspalum vaginatum.  Seashore paspalum is the common name.  Platinum TE is the one variety, and Pure Dynasty is the seeded variety.  The paspalum turf grasses are very salt-tolerant, meaning they don’t grow with ocean water, but they tolerate higher levels of salt than almost any other turf grass.  And along with that tolerance comes the ability for those grasses to grow in adverse conditions like mining sites where heavy metals may be mined; and, you know, those mines have to be reclaimed and put back into their natural state.  Paspalum fits into those markets.  And because of the deep rooting of the paspalums, they’re also used in land stabilization, as well.  So we work with a number of companies across the United States on land reclamation projects and erosion control. BILL YATES:  Yeah. The Bid for The FIFA World Cup Turf WENDY GROUNDS:  The next thing I want to get into is the FIFA World Cup.  And for those who are not in the know of the FIFA World Cup, it was in 2022 towards the end of the year in Qatar; and Platinum TE was the turf on all the playing fields.  How did you bid for that project?  How did you get that project? JOHN HOLMES:  Yeah, it’s kind of an amazing story.  So about nine years ago I received an email from a person over in Qatar who was interested in trialing the Platinum TE on one of the soccer pitches at a facility called the Aspire Zone, which is the Olympic training facility for Qatar.  And they were interested in the Platinum TE, again because of its salt tolerance and its ability to grow in harsh climates.  And so we shipped some material over there, and one of my business trips over to the Middle East region, I stopped into Qatar.  I’d never been there before.  And I went to visit the field manager.  And he was just over the moon with the quality of the turf grass.  This was way before Qatar was awarded the World Cup.  And so they were happy with it.  We were happy that they were a happy customer. And then the country was awarded the World Cup.  And FIFA came in, and they started trials on which turf grass would work best there.  So the Aspire Zone folks, FIFA, and a couple of independent parties, STRI out of the U.K., started trialing turf grasses from all over the world in various different conditions, not knowing during the trials that the tournament would actually be in the cooler months of the year, but they also trialed the turf in heavy shade conditions because most of the stadiums are almost completely covered, not totally.  And during those trials, the Platinum TE kept on trialing number one, number one, number one. And so eventually we started getting requests from contractors in Qatar for our Platinum TE.  No one ever picked up the phone and said, “Hey, your Platinum TE’s going to be on the World Cup fields.”  But we kind of made that assumption.  And so we started sending turf grass over to Qatar from the farm in Adel, Georgia with our partners Pike Creek Turf. Transporting the Turf The turf, just a background on how that process works, is harvested by a machine, and imagine squares of sod shredded into small pieces of grass.  And they’re washed free of soil, hydro-cooled and boxed, and flown over to Qatar.  We do that with the majority of our shipments of turf grass.