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How Greg Wittstock Took Aquascape Out of the Backyard
Greg Wittstock has turned his childhood fascination with pond building into a successful water feature business, providing both certifications for contractors across the world while working with high-profile clients like professional basketball players.
Who would’ve guessed that a childhood turtle pond would turn into a full-blown career? But for Greg Wittstock of Aquascape, that’s exactly what happened.
“When I was a 12-year-old kid, I built my first pond to house my pet turtles, and I just made every mistake possible,” says Greg. “That pond leaked, turned green and my prize turtle started migrating away. And that became my classroom. I would go in the backyard and always mess with it in the summers.”
Fast forward to 1991, and Greg launched Aquascape in Chicago, Illinois while he was still in college. What started with just Greg, a wheelbarrow and a shovel turned into a successful operation, thanks in part to a 1992 write-up in the Chicago Tribune that showed Greg the power of public relations. With the advent of social media, Greg knew he could take his business even further.
“We really launched with YouTube and Facebook and everything in the last 10 years, but it all started from learning how Aquascape was successful by getting the word out there, back from that article in 1992 in the Chicago Tribune,” Greg notes.
Aquascape now manufactures and distributes a full line of professional water feature products and creates water features based on sustainability, developing a balanced ecosystem through filtration, plants, fish and more. They also provide a certification program for other contractors who might be interested in learning how to create aquascapes. This program provides the training and tools needed to become an expert in the installation of water features.
“We've got contractors all over the world who have gone through an online testing program, submitted project pictures and customer testimonials, and then become certified,” Greg says.
Certified Aquascape Contractors are featured on the Aquascape website to make it easy for customers to find one in their area. And only the best of the best is chosen as an Aquascape Artist of the Year.
It was a group of these pros who tackled a project for a big-name former professional basketball player. Greg connected with this client about a pond build for his home in Georgia and set to work with a crew of Certified Aquascape Contractor Artist of the Year winners. The result is a stunning koi pond crafted by the pros and the help of some Cat® equipment.
Greg first got in contact with Caterpillar in 2008 for at build at Pondemonium and the relationship took off from there.
“We've always used Caterpillar on our construction job sites, but when we had the World's Most Extreme pond built at [Pondemonium], we reached out to corporate and they came out and supported us with equipment from their local dealer in Chicago, and we had a really good relationship with a lot of the guys,” Greg says.
So when the recent koi pond build came up, Greg knew who to call. He connected with Caterpillar again and got equipment to use on-site. And for Greg, it all boils down to this:
“Caterpillar's the biggest and the best.”
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