Richie Kremer says his surprise dismissal from his previous post turned out for the best when he landed at Pequabuck Golf Club in Terryville, Conn. Photos by Scott Ramsay, CGCS
The week before Thanksgiving 2023 was a roller coaster for Richie Kremer.
That Monday, he received a surprise phone call from GCSAA’s then-president, Kevin Breen, CGCS, telling him he was the recipient of the 2024 Emerging Leader Award.
Four days later, Kremer was let go as superintendent at Hop Meadow Country Club in Simsbury, Conn.
“It was unexpected,” Kremer says. “All I really got was that the board had made the decision to go in a different direction. That’s all I got out of them. It was a shock to myself and the entire membership and the entire crew I
had brought on. They all enjoyed working for me. I wasn’t looking to leave Hop Meadow.”
Kremer, now the GCSAA Class A superintendent at Pequabuck Golf Club in Terryville, Conn., landed on his feet. He landed the new gig just before he collected his ELA at the GCSAA Conference and Trade Show on Feb. 1 in Phoenix.
“Looking back on it, it was for the good,” says Kremer, a seven-year GCSAA member. “I’m happier at my current position. In my opinion, there’s less stress than Hop Meadow. It’s more low-key. I’m happy. It’s
a good crew. We’re producing a product the membership is excited to see. I’m very fortunate they offered me the position. I fit in well here.”
That’s Kremer (back row, left) participating in the 2023 National Golf Day in Washington, D.C.
He also fits in well with the criteria for the Emerging Leader Award, which is presented in partnership with John Deere. The ELA recognizes an individual who serves the industry as a member of GCSAA within the following membership categories: superintendent
with less than five years’ experience, student, associate or assistant, who displays continuous growth in service and leadership. A nominee must be a member in good standing, engaged in their local chapter and/or at the national level, or at
the community level, as an advocate for the profession.
Kremer checked all those boxes.
He has been active at the chapter level and serves on the Connecticut Association of Golf Course Superintendents board of directors. He has served as a high school cross country coach and is the CAGCS representative to the state’s First Tee program.
He also participated in last year’s National Golf Day in Washington, D.C.
“It just shows it’s not just my job on the golf course that matters,” says Kremer, 37. “We’re trying to grow the industry and help people understand more about what we do. I’ve always been the type of person who likes
to give back. In college, every year for spring break I did a volunteer trip for hurricane relief. It’s a part of who I am. I just try to give back, whether that’s helping individuals or trying to make things better for the industry.”
Kremer at the National Golf Day Community Service Project.
A head for business
Though he’s been in the green industry since his first job in high school, Kremer didn’t think early on he’d be a part of the golf side of it.
Kremer kept that first job — working in a garden center — for six years, but when he first enrolled at the University of Connecticut, he “jumped around majors.” Initially, he hoped to go into accounting in UConn’s School
of Business.
“I had taken a couple of accounting classes in high school,” Kremer says. “I was always a math person. But I was just below the threshold GPA-wise to get into the school of business, so that went out the window, for the most part, and
I had to fi gure out what I wanted to do.”
Kremer tried sociology for a semester before he had an epiphany.
“I thought, ‘Why not do something that I enjoy working with? I enjoy working with plants,’” he says.
So, Kremer pivoted into horticulture and added turfgrass science as a second major. Along with that came an internship — at his hometown Hop Meadow CC — the summer before his fi nal year.
“The rest is history,” Kremer says.
Well, sort of. Kremer returned to Hop Meadow for two years as an assistant before a stressful working environment there convinced him to leave for work at a landscaping company.
“I needed to get out of there (Hop Meadow) for my own health,” Kremer says of his four-year landscaping hiatus. “They made a change over there, and I had stayed in touch. The other assistant/mechanic at the course took over, and he wanted
me to come back, so I went back to Hop Meadow.”
Pequabuck Golf Club, Kremer’s new home. Photo by Richie Kremer
Kremer spent four more years as an assistant before there was another change at the top, and he took his first job as a head superintendent, at 34, at Hop Meadow in 2020.
“I think my time working for the landscaping company helped when I got back to the golf course, because it gave me a broader understanding. A golf course is more than just turf,” Kremer says. “You’re dealing with turf, obviously,
but there are trees on a golf course. Most golf courses have to maintain garden beds as well. It made me a better person.”
And, it turns out his fondness for numbers might have paved the way as well.
“It was a unique time,” Kremer says of his appointment in April 2020. “That was the start of COVID, too. Once I took over, I started realizing all the stuff I was already doing for the superintendent. I was running the crew most of the
time, handing out jobs with guidance from him. I did a lot on the golf course already, so I rolled right into that position and pretty much picked up anything I didn’t know. With the budget and stuff like that, with my background and enjoying
working with math and dealing with money, it worked out well.
“The first year was challenging because we’d had drought for quite a while. But I was able to manage the golf course and keep it healthy and alive. Given all the circumstances and the other challenge with COVID, being asked to cut back on
costs and not knowing what was happening, I was able to reduce the amount of my budget by 15 to 20%. I thought that was impressive.”
Kremer (second from left) at the Health in Action 5K as part of the 2023 GCSAA Conference and Trade Show in Orlando. Photo courtesy of GraceMarie Chapin
‘He’s just a bull’
Kremer isn’t just good with numbers. Apparently, he’s pretty good with people, too.
“Richie’s a great guy,” says Michael Labossiere, a grounds crew foreman for four seasons under Kremer at Hop Meadow. “I’m 68 years old, semi-retired. He’s in the top three bosses I’ve had in my lifetime. He’s
a good guy, a hard worker — a really hard worker. Once he gets into a project or job, he’s just a bull.”
And he seems to be a pretty good judge of his workers. Case in point: When Hop Meadow CC was working to become a Certified Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary, Kremer, realizing Labossiere’s chops as a naturalist, put his grounds crew foreman in charge
of the project. It came to fruition just this spring, and Labossiere — who since has moved on to Montaup Country Club in Portsmouth, R.I., after 10 years at Hop Meadow — was invited back for the ceremony.
“Richie was instrumental in helping me get that Audubon certification for Hop Meadow,” Labossiere says. “A lot of it was because he gave me the latitude to do it. He took over a lot of the turf portion of that, and I was more the environmental
and naturalist part. But he knew I could do the job. Being allowed to do it was pretty huge.”
Labossiere isn’t an outlier.
Consider Josh Lennie. A former professional football (that’s soccer to us Yanks) player in his native England and former coach, Lennie was looking for a second career when he answered an ad on Indeed to join the crew at Hop Meadow CC. First as a
second assistant then as assistant over four years at Hop Meadow, Lennie flourished under Kremer.
“I went into landscaping a little while before Richie gave me an opportunity there,” says Lennie, a two-year GCSAA member. “Richie made it easier. He’s very happy to teach, and very knowledgeable. Richie’s thing is, you can
learn on the job. If you’re interested, you can make a career from it.”
That’s exactly what Lennie, 38, is doing now.
He went back to school to study turfgrass and plans to pursue assistant certification. He left Hop Meadow not long after Kremer was let go — and as a direct result of it — and now is at Rockledge Golf Club in West Hartford, Conn.
“I want to achieve as much as I can,” he says. “I don’t want to be a superintendent. I just want to be the best assistant I can be. And Richie’s a big part of that. We have a great relationship still. We’re still in
regular contact. He helped me out in school this year in the UMass ag program. He’s always willing to help. He still buys my kids Christmas presents. He’s the kind of boss and leader you want.”
Andrew Hartsock (ahartsock@gcsaa.org) is GCM’s editor-in-chief.