An Eye on Tim Alan
By Rob Swanson

      This is the kind of career change that could give a person whiplash, but Tim Alan takes it in stride. No, not that Tim Alan. As our Tim would point out, the comedian spells his last name wrong. Still, they do have one thing in common; both are TV stars – though our Tim would debate that label, what would you call a person with his own show appearing in a million homes across the world? Tim’s cable show, Eye on Gardening, has an international audience where his expertise in horticulture and love of the Lord brighten landscapes and hearts alike. That’s a far cry from busting gang members in Miami, don’t you think? Yet that was Tim’s first career.
     
In High School, gardening was the furthest thing from Tim’s well-disciplined mind. His aim was Criminal Justice and Law Enforcement. Recruited into the Police Cadet Program followed by the Civil Air Patrol – prepared, he said, by the nuns of his Catholic upbringing – Tim was well on the way to realizing his dream. Fresh out of the Academy, though, his first job as a Miami cop was during the McDuffie riots. Tim told me, “Miami in the 80’s was like being dropped into Vietnam in ’64 or ’65. It was out of control!” He and several of his friends were hurt during the riots, and watching Miami burn became an almost daily occurrence. Add to that a fledgling marriage, and Tim came to the stunning conclusion, “it was time to get out!”

      Tim often speaks with exclamation points. His exuberance comes from a spirit bursting with the fire of God. He acknowledges the Lord in almost every sentence, eager to share his experiences with his audience, whether it’s just me or his millions of viewers. TV was a long way off, though, after he mustered out of the police force. Instead he turned his attention to horticulture. Why horticulture? He thought about the question a moment and then shrugged. “I have no idea! Did I have a propensity for it? No, not really… Law enforcement, horticulture…” He pantomimed weighing them in either hand, “it seemed like a good idea at the time!”

      As anyone who knows Tim is aware, he throws himself completely into everything he does. While others started landscaping businesses solely on experience, Tim sought degrees as well, getting both a wide and deep understanding of all things that grow.

      He also discovered God as more than a ritual. Tim says, “I’d grown tired with the wheel of life, struggling to get people to pay you for your services, the daily grind of life…. So I prayed the most powerful prayer there is: ‘God if you’re real, show me!’ And He did!”

      Tim and his wife became born-again believers, on fire for the Lord, but still their marriage was falling apart. His company, just kicking off, kept receiving bad checks from people Tim knew were Christians. “That can take a toll on your faith, so for five years I would drift away from God and drift back, until I realized my relationship was with God, not these people. I shouldn’t be offended by them, I should pray for them. Of course, I wasn’t always very good with that,” he admitted with a sigh. His company grew, including travel to exotic locations as he helped with the design of the Bahamas resort, Atlantis. He also served as a consultant in the rebuilding of Jamaica after a devastating hurricane. A more personal hurricane awaited him back home, where his wife left him.

      God met Tim in his despair, kicking off an intense time of study in the Bible under the tutelage of strong believers. It was both a difficult and a sweet time of life; two traits that seem to follow Tim around, personally and professionally. He continued to study horticulture, taking a job with ChemLawn, gaining true expertise in the chemical treatment of landscaping.

      After several years, a well-known termite company hired him away to work their new plant and lawn care section. “To make a long story short,” he said, “God bless their hearts, they were doing everything wrong. I looked at their program and told them gasoline could have killed all those lawns a lot cheaper than this, but not much quicker.” His new employers didn’t take the news well, nor the suggestion that they really owed most of the Southeast reparations for their dead lawns. Tim was told it was his job to convince everyone otherwise. Unimpressed with such blatant dishonesty, he declined, followed quickly by unemployment. Lesco took him on next, steeping him in both fertilizer lore and operations knowledge.

      Then, through a corporate headhunter, Tim was matched with an Alabama businessman – a seemingly strong Christian – to run his landscaping company. Only things weren’t as they seemed. The businessman was not an honest man, and Tim was forced to get out before being dragged down.

      Now he was stuck in Montgomery, Alabama, with no job… but a new sideline. The CBS Morning show asked him to do regular 90 second live spots giving gardening tips. Tim found the locations, created the content and set up the shoot. He was getting plenty of exposure, just no paycheck. In his customary gentle manner he finally asked if it was possible to get paid. Once more, Tim found a door slammed in his face. “Guess I missed God on that one,” he’d thought at the time. If he only knew…

      On the advice of a client, he moved back to Florida to watch over Destin properties, pulling weeds, mowing lawns, designing landscapes… and, oh yeah, forming his own production company: Eye on Gardening. This time he found sponsors to finance his shoots, and placed spots with CBS, NBC and ABC affiliates. TV was quickly consuming his time, shoving his other jobs to the side. His short spots were gardening tips mixed with inspiration; “it had a soft Christian focus,” he said, “seeing as how it was on secular stations.” It’s hard to imagine Tim “soft pedaling” Christianity. The Holy Spirit seems to project from his tanned skin.

      A year later, after devoting himself full time to production, he was growing closer to the Lord out of sheer desperation: “God made sure my air time bills were always paid, but there were some lean times where all our food came from the Dollar Store and we cried out to God just to subsist, you know?” Tim had entered into his second marriage with a wiser eye this time. “We got marriage counseling and confirmation from other believers… yet it’s still hard. It takes a lot of work, no matter how much we love each other.” Ironically, that sounds a lot like gardening, doesn’t it?

      With much prayer and guidance, Tim took his show up a notch when iLife TV courted him for exclusive distribution on their digital channel. 90-second gardening tips transformed into a full half-hour show of inspiration and instruction, to match the iLife programming vision.

      iLife TV is Christian Lifestyle Programming. You won’t see church services or preachers, but you will see believers living their lives in contemporary fashion. Part of the Digital Network, iLife is one step above the Basic Package, world wide. “Don’t get me wrong,” Tim says, “there are stubborn markets we’re struggling to get carriage in, and Orlando is one of them. We’re having a problem with Bright House; they won’t carry us… but they will!”

      And definitely they should. You’ve read some of Tim’s tips in this very magazine. They are clever, insightful, and altogether unusual (grits to kill fire ants?), and they all work! Couple that gardening wisdom with exotic locations, and you have Eye on Gardening. Tim’s even gone to outer space – okay, not really, but one show was located at Kennedy Space Center, and clips of the shuttle in space were intercut with the landscaping design of the Cape.

      No rest for those set aflame by the Holy Spirit, Tim intends to grow his production company, Third Day Entertainment, to encompass new shows – all Top Secret at the moment. Keep an eye on Tim by dropping by his website, www.eyeongardening.com for news, inspiration, and gardening tips and gifts. And if you’re a Bright House customer, consider dropping them a note asking for iLife TV. Orlando will thank you for it.