How a Marine Veteran Rebuilt His San Diego Small Business With a Plan, AI, and His People First

By ICIC | November 12, 2026

When Oscar Saucedo lost nearly all his clients and had to rebuild his San Diego landscaping business, he faced a choice: simply recover what he’d lost or build something stronger. With a clear growth plan, new technology, and an unwavering commitment to his employees, he set out to create a business that could provide lasting opportunities for his people and his community.

Key Takeaways

• Put your values first. For Oscar, that means giving employees security that lasts beyond the job. He offered medical coverage and a 401(k) early, even when it cost him his partnership.
• A growth plan creates a path forward. After losing nearly all his clients, Oscar used the plan he developed through ICIC’s Building for Growth (BFG) to guide his recovery and future investments.
• Strategy means planning years ahead. The firms that win are preparing before contracts are ever posted.
• AI pays off most when the team uses it too. It sharpened his proposals and pricing, and it moved a crew member into a supervisor role.
• Business growth creates opportunities beyond the business. From developing employee leaders to launching a wildfire resilience venture and planning for employee ownership, Oscar is building a stronger future for his employees and community.

In 2005, Oscar Saucedo was running convoy security in Iraq with the Marines when he started watching Tashner, an older Desert Storm veteran in his unit who stayed calm under pressure and always took care of his people.

“I took the leadership principles from the Marines and from him and applied them to pretty much the rest of my life,” Oscar says. “I’m not a rah-rah kind of guy. I just do the work, and I make sure I take care of my people.”

That lesson would guide Oscar through the growth of his business, a difficult decision to start over, and his commitment to creating opportunities for the people who help him succeed.

A Business Bought to Keep a Family Working

After the Marines, Oscar joined the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department, where he is now a battalion chief. In 2009, the recession hit and his father needed work. His mother told him, “You need to do something, Oscar.”

He found a landscaping route for sale on Craigslist. At 27, he scraped together $15,000, borrowed from family and a mentor, and worked off the rest doing jobs at the seller’s house. That route became Landworks Inc., the veteran-owned commercial landscaping and construction company in San Diego that Oscar still leads as president and CEO. For 10 years, it ran with two employees: his dad and a longtime worker named Emilio.

Choosing People Over Profit

About six years ago, Oscar went all in. He took out a home equity line of credit, won a large commercial contract, and brought on partners. Revenue grew from about $200,000 to $1.3 million, and the crew grew to 16. Many of them were fathers and sons who had done this work for years with no way to move up.

Oscar offered medical coverage and a 401(k). “Individuals like my dad work for 30 years, and all they have is Social Security,” he says. “I wanted to grow a company where I was able to make that change.”

But Oscar’s commitment to his employees would soon put him at odds with his business partners. They wanted more of the money to stay at the top. When they pushed to buy his father’s equity as he retired, Oscar knew the partnership was finished. In March 2024, he bought them out. They took nearly every client, and Landworks dropped from 16 employees to two part-time workers.

Starting Over With a Plan

Weeks later, Oscar enrolled in ICIC’s Building for Growth (BFG), an executive education program for construction-related businesses offered at no cost to participants thanks to ICIC’s generous sponsors. Owners learn from instructors, industry leaders, and peers, and leave with a growth plan of their own. That plan became a roadmap for rebuilding Landworks, helping Oscar focus on the investments and opportunities that would move the business forward.

“I was almost restarting again, and I had to refocus and see where I was going next. BFG gave me that. I wrote my business plan at the end of the program, and two and a half years later, I’m pretty spot on with everything I forecasted.”
– Oscar Saucedo, President and CEO, Landworks Inc. 

One speaker’s advice stuck with him: if you start bidding after a contract is posted, you’re already behind. The firms that win get ready years earlier.

He also found a sounding board in another participant, Josue Velney, a fellow Marine veteran and retired firefighter who runs a real estate development company in Massachusetts. “He gave me 45 minutes of his time and just listened to what I was going through,” Oscar says.

Oscar worked through his plan one goal at a time. His part-time employees went full time. Then he invested about $70,000 in equipment and started a construction division. The one hotel account that stayed through the split has since turned into four.

Putting AI in His Team’s Hands

To replace the operations experience his partners took, Oscar turned to technology. A year practicing with an $80 chatbot sharpened his proposals and won him four new jobs. A free, three-hour AI academy through a local organization showed him how much more was possible. He used AI to break down every cost on his construction jobs and reprice them, and he earned margins of 30% to 40% on his last four projects.

True to his commitment to investing in his employees, Oscar didn’t keep those tools to himself. He put them in his crew’s hands. Alejandro, his maintenance supervisor, now uses AI to troubleshoot irrigation, email hotel managers, and lead large commercial walkthroughs on his own. Together they built a system that moves approved proposals into QuickBooks and DocuSign for about $250 in software. Other companies have tried to hire Alejandro away, but he has stayed. “He sees the value in it,” Oscar says.

ICIC’s AI in Business report, a survey of 3,752 small business owners, recommends bringing employees into decisions about new technology. Oscar did exactly that. With his crew growing into leaders, he has had room to think about what else he can build.

From One Yard to a Whole Neighborhood

As Landworks regained its footing, Oscar began looking at opportunities to make an even broader impact. Twenty years in the fire service showed Oscar how fast wildfire risk was growing around San Diego. Alongside Alex, a trusted friend and fellow firefighter, he launched TrueGround to help protect local communities.

TrueGround assesses wildfire risk for homeowners, commercial and institutional properties, public-sector sites, and homeowners’ associations (HOAs). It maps community- and property-level vulnerabilities and provides long-term mitigation plans to improve wildfire resilience. Local partners, including Landworks, can help implement recommended vegetation management, defensible space, and home hardening improvements.

BFG Program Director Steve Lamar and Program Manager Monica Chenier called the idea “big goal thinking.” His first community has 206 homes. The initial meeting with the HOA board drew so much interest that the board kept him an hour past his scheduled time. For Oscar, TrueGround and Landworks grow from the same idea: a business should make the people and places around it stronger.

Building Toward Employee Ownership

The commitment to his people that began with the lessons he learned in the Marines continues to shape Oscar’s vision for Landworks. No one on his current team has left, and his long-term goal is to make the company employee-owned. That way, the people building the business can also build wealth to pass down to their families, something many workers like his dad never get the chance to do.

More than 20 years after Iraq, he still leads the way Tashner did: quietly, and with his people first.

“Where can I effect the most change?” he says. “I think it’s with business.”

Build Your Next Chapter

Owners of construction-related businesses can learn more about ICIC’s Building for Growth (BFG), explore AI training on ICIC’s AI hub, and, after the program, stay connected to peers and continuing education through ICIC’s Alumni Network (ICAN).

For funders and partners, owners like Oscar create quality jobs, open paths to ownership, and strengthen their communities. Connect with ICIC at icic.org/about/partners to expand access to executive education for entrepreneurs in under-resourced areas.