Lawncare Extraordinaire

By Kim Wunner, July 9, 2026

Raf Campanile ’30 is vaulting his family landscaping business in to the future with a strategic leadership major.

Raf Campanile '29 owns a lawn care business. Since he was 11 years old, he has been building an enterprise, one lawn at a time. Photo submitted.

Sometimes, being an entrepreneur is in your blood. It’s simply how you move through the world. Sometimes it shows up early—a lemonade stand, or a babysitting gig that grows into booking jobs for friends. For Raf Campanile ’29, it started with mowing lawns.

The strategic leadership major has been running his own thriving lawncare and landscaping business since he was eleven years old. He has a plan for growing it over the next ten years.

He came to Ithaca College School of Business to develop the skills and gain the experience to make it happen.

And to pole vault.

It just so happens his sister goes here, too.

BUSINESS AND LIFE LESSONS

Two workers wear the BT Mowing t-shirts, showing the logo of the Jericho, Vermont company Raf owns.

Campanile is from Jericho, Vermont, about an hour north of Burlington—a suburb with plenty of lawns. At 11, a neighbor hired him to mow theirs. Raf hauled out the family’s push mower and got the job done … with some help. “I was like, ‘Oh, this is so tough!’ and my dad had to help me,” he says with a laugh at his younger self. He did not know it then but that would be first of hundreds of lawns.

That neighbor became his first customer—and remains his oldest. To this day, Raf still mows their lawn.

The next summer, he added a few more properties, then landed his first big job: a shared green space in his neighborhood. He won it through a bidding process—already learning foundational business concepts like market radius, pricing, and positioning.

“We were so close and we didn’t have to charge for gas, so we were able to give a really low number—especially because we didn’t really know how to bid those big jobs yet,” he says.

For the Campanile family, that contract revealed something else: mowing lawns could be profitable. His dad—whom Raf calls his biggest inspiration—saw an opportunity for a meaningful life lesson and encouraged him to turn the work into a real business.

“He was right. It’s been super beneficial in terms of everything,” says Campanile. “So we got started. I was about 13 and a half.”

The name of the business nods to their heritage—“Campanile” is Italian for “bell tower,” so they landed on “BT Mowing.”

Raf and his sister, Francesca '27 in front of the fountains. Francesca also goes to IC, studying psychology at the School of Humanities and Sciences. Photo submitted.

A FAMILY THAT GOES TO IC TOGETHER…

Campanile is a member of the IC pole vaulting team. Here, he is at the A+E Center. Photo submitted.

The “we” behind the business includes Raf, his father, his brother, and his sister, Francesca ’27, who is also a student at IC.

Francesca transferred into the School of Humanities and Sciences as a psychology major after earning her associate degree. She graduated from that program just as Raf was finishing high school, and she was ready for what she calls an “actual college experience.” One campus instead of two also made their parents happy.

The two arrived on South Hill together—Raf as a first-year student, Francesca as a junior.

“It’s great. It’s awesome,” Raf says. “I’ve always had a really good relationship with her … she’s always been there for me.”

The seasonal rhythm of the business aligns almost perfectly with the academic calendar. The busiest stretch—mid-spring through mid-fall—means that while Raf and Francesca are on campus, their father and brother keep things running at home, along with a couple of additional crew members. When summer arrives, the full team is back together.

There’s one more reason Raf chose IC: track and field.

A lifelong athlete, he played soccer and competed in the decathlon in high school where got experience with pole vaulting.

“Sports is what I do. I love sports. And I’ve always had a dream of competing in college.”

At IC, he’s doing exactly that.

“Raf has been an incredible addition to our team and track family,” says assistant coach Dom Mikula ’23, who works with pole vaulters and won a national championship in the event. “He was highly recruited and has already had an outstanding start—jumping 15'3" as a first-year, beating his high school personal best, and placing at our indoor conference meet. He’s also a leader for our vault squad, with incredible drive and passion in everything he does.”

A strong business program and the chance to compete at the collegiate level were non-negotiables in Raf’s college search. Ithaca College offered both, along with a culture that supports students in pursuing all their interests fully.

That, he says, is what sealed it. (It is gorges. )

THE GRASS IS GETTING GREENER AND GREENER

The summer BT Mowing was founded brought another lesson: scaling. Bigger jobs required bigger equipment, which increased efficiency and capacity. The family invested in a riding mower—“a nice sit-down tractor”—and quickly saw the difference.

At first, their service radius stayed tight—just one or two miles from home. Push mowers could fit in the family minivan, but larger equipment required a trailer. So, they grew strategically: close jobs, done well, leading to more work.

From there, expansion came steadily.

“We were able to scale up, get a trailer, then a truck,” Campanile says. “That let us go beyond that two-mile radius and take on more and more jobs.”

The numbers tell the story:

“By our first year, we had about 10 recurring customers. The second year, around 25—and then it just kept growing. Now, we’re close to 80 recurring clients.”

And that’s just cutting grass. BT Mowing now offers fall and spring cleanup and has expanded into landscaping.

Campanile credits the rapid growth to a clear market need.

“It scaled fast. We were in a great area for it. There wasn’t a lot of competition, so there was definitely space.”

Marketing has remained simple and hyper-local. The business relies on Front Porch Forum, a community-based online platform widely used in Vermont and parts of New York. No flashy website, no heavy social media strategy—just visibility where it matters.

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