ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT: Twins James and Madison Daly, BC Class of 2011, making an impact

One man’s urban forest waste is the Daly twins’ treasure.

James Daly IV and Madison Daly, identical twin brothers and graduates of the Benedictine Military School Class of 2011, are steadily building an empire in South Carolina and Georgia. Their mission is to repurpose urban forest waste, consisting of tree and landscape debris, into usable landscape products to beautify our communities.

They founded Daly Organics (https://dalyorganics.com) in 2016 in Hardeeville, S.C., and also serve the Savannah, Bluffton, Hilton Head Island, and Charleston areas. Their motto, “a different shade of green,” not only depicts their company’s process of turning “green” vegetative waste into “different” soils and colored mulches but also represents their company’s eco-friendly practice of repurposing urban forest waste into landscape products instead of landfill disposal.

The Daly twins returned to Benedictine Military School on Jan. 7 to talk with Cadets in the Advanced Placement Environmental class of Mr. Drew Schwalbe ’90. The brothers said they were honored to be invited and proud to return to ’Ol BC, which is a family tradition. Their late grandfather, James Daly, Jr., ’53, graduated from BC. Their father, Dr. James Daly III ’74, graduated from BC. And their uncle, Dr. Dale Daly ’80, and cousins Sam Daly ’20 and Jack Daly ’16, also are BC graduates.

“We graduated Wofford (College). Majored in environmental science. Minored in business. And we knew pretty early on, junior year probably, that we wanted to go into business together,” James said. “Something in the outdoors. And, obviously, the environment. We’re avid outdoorsmen, big fishermen, big hunters, so we want to do all that we can to preserve that, and that’s where we saw a big opportunity through Wofford, through our own research that we did with recycling and renewable energies and the waste market. We knew we wanted to do something with waste and something with recycling.

“We came home, and we started to look around and realized that we wanted to go into the composting business,” James continued. “We originally wanted to get into food waste, and we went and toured a facility down in Florida, and took a big class on it, and, man, it was just a really, really messy business. And we didn’t like it. And the permitting is just super stringent. And then we started looking at yard waste, you know, any kind of green, vegetative waste is a good carbon source and composts on its own. We knew we had plenty of that back home. We had some family land in Hardeeville, S.C., and we leased that land from our parents and started our own little facility. We bought some rinky dinky equipment to get started. One of our good buddies from grade school was in between jobs so he started working with us. It was just the three of us. We started calling guys and letting them dump for free over at our facility. We quickly learned that we could charge them to dump because we were doing a service for them. And they could pick up compost and mulch after they were dumping. It was really just a full-loop business being able to recycle the vegetative debris, turning it into compost or mulch, and sometimes selling it right back to the landscaper that dumped the debris there.”

The Daly twins shared with Mr. Schwalbe’s AP Environmental science students how they have overcome obstacles and how they consistently strive to learn every facet of their business.

“We started in 2016 and by the time we really got our feet underneath us, because the equipment is so incredibly expensive, the capital that we needed was just a lot, it took us a long time to get going,” James said. “It was the school of hard knocks. We learned everything there was about this business. Every nut and bolt. We knew our equipment. We weren’t mechanics before we started, and I’ll tell you, now, we could open a mechanic shop if the business decided to go downhill because we have learned a lot about diesel motors and how they operate. That’s kind of where we are now.

“Hardeeville, like any other business story, started to grow and people started hearing about us,” James continued. “We sell on a full-sale level. We sell a product to large-scale companies and retail nurseries in the area. They buy it and then they sell it to the general public and smaller landscapers and so forth. It’s just much easier for us to turn a profit that way. We can’t just load the place up and have no plan to get rid of it because it could catch on fire, and we can get in a lot of trouble. We have to have a way to get rid of this material through composting and mulch. We’re kind of like a landfill that never fills us. We just completely recycle this material, and it leaves our yard. That’s how we sell it.”

“We started in Hardeeville and my wife had a job opportunity in Charleston, S.C., and we’ve always dreamed of coming up to Charleston one day (to live),” James said. “We saw a huge opportunity to be up there, and we went. Once she started her job opportunity up there, I moved up there and was driving from Charleston to Hardeeville and back every day to work. That soon became super monotonous and very tiresome, so I started looking really hard up here (in Charleston) for a place and actually found a yard not too far from where I was living, in Mount Pleasant, S.C. We made an offer, and they accepted. We bought our second operation two years ago over in Mount Pleasant. And last year, we didn’t buy our third operation, we just took it over from a guy, and it’s in Ravenel, S.C., and we just closed on our fourth operation in Savannah last December. We’re not actually open for business yet. We’re still kind of getting everything ready. We should open within the month. We’re looking to continue moving up and down the coast. We see a huge opportunity with Brunswick and Myrtle Beach and Richmond Hill, those areas that are filled with tree canopy and so much greenery on the coast. It all needs to go to a home rather than go to a landfill. We can reuse and repurpose. It’s a perfect example of recycling. Recycling has a negative connotation in some ways. A lot of people think recycle means a lesser or poor quality. We try not to use recycle too often. We say reuse or repurpose. If anything, our product is actually better than what we see come from most traditional mulch companies. We’re looking to stay in coastal areas and to keep growing. We really love what we’re doing, and we have a good business model now.”

The daily grind is the Daly grind. No task is too great or small for the twins.

“We really haven’t had that conversation of who does what,” James said. “We kind of do everything. Whatever is needed. Whatever is on our plate. I seem to do well with the business development of things, setting up these new operations and helping to acquire them. Madison has really been good with managing the current operations and managing employees. That might be something where we differentiate with our duties. He’s primarily in charge of our Mount Pleasant facility and I kind of run our Ravenel yard.

“And Taylor, he’s the third guy that I was discussing, he’s the manager of our Hardeeville location,” James continued. “Hardeeville is, by far, our largest location. It’s an animal. Madison and I both manage that. We both go down there frequently. We both live in Charleston but we both go down there at least three days a week to check on things just because it’s such a beast. We have 30 employees and 15 of them are at the Hardeeville branch. Our other yards are a little bit smaller, but they still pack a big punch, but Hardeeville is our biggest production yard for composting and mulch, producing our products. Another thing we’re looking at is putting a bagging operation in there and starting to bag our products. We plan to start that and offer it to Ace Hardware and tractor supplies, and our current customers. Our product will, hopefully, be in a bag and we’ll develop our own brand. That’s the next low-hanging fruit, to get into bagging.”

The Daly twins were phenomenal tennis players, but they did not transfer to Benedictine Military School until the start of their junior year because they were homeschooled.

“We were homeschooled for a while to try and pursue our tennis career,” James said. “We traveled a lot and were playing four hours a day and quickly got burned out. We transferred to BC. We heard there was a tennis team, and Madison and I hadn’t picked up a racket in like six months. We went and played and it was like the lights turned on. We met Coach Ken Cooper, the ‘Coop Dawg,’ and he was just a great role model. We loved him. Loved having him coach us. We knew more about the fundamentals and the technique of the game, but he was supportive and a role model, a great guy to have who cheered us on. It’s pretty funny. We showed up late for practice and he got onto us. He quickly humbled us and we learned it’s not all about us.”

Madison said he, too, vividly remembers Coach Cooper, who died in 2017, making an example of the twins in front of their teammates.

“The most impactful person (at BC) to us was Coach Ken Cooper,” Madison said. “Gosh. That was an important lesson. We always kind of thought, ‘Oh, we’re probably going to be the best guys on the team. I’m sure we’ll get some sort of special treatment.’ Man, that was not the case. He said, ‘You guys need to train just as hard as anybody else.’ And really, what he said to us is you’ve got to set the example. Set the example for your other teammates. If you guys aren’t trying, then what are (your teammates) thinking?

“A lot of our employees have told us, ‘We’ve never had more respect for anybody that we’ve ever worked for than you guys because you guys aren’t scared to get down in the weeds, get down, get dirty, and fix a piece of equipment or do the job that I’m doing.’” Madison continued. “That’s helped us out a lot, that work ethic and just being unafraid to work harder than anybody else. A lot of life is leadership and making decisions. You make a lot of decisions when you’re an athlete, while you’re playing the game or while you’re amongst your teammates. You’re making a lot of decisions and you’re learning how to interact with people, and lead people. Playing tennis for BC was really impactful for us and Coach Cooper, he drilled it into us that we need to take it seriously.”

Madison Daly said another major influence was LTC John Manson Owens III ’61, who retired in 2013 after 27 years of service to Benedictine as its Senior Army Instructor (SAI). The Daly twins, as members of BC’s JROTC program, loved being developed by Owens.

“We were lucky enough to have him,” Madison said. “Everybody was like, ‘LTC Owens, he’s a scary guy. He’s one of those guys who will tell you straight up what he thinks about you. He’s not afraid to yell at you.’ Going into his class, I remember being really nervous because I didn’t want to be on this guy’s bad side. I wanted to impress him. And I mean right out of the gate we became pretty close with LTC Owens. He knew my grandfather. We would hang out after hours and he would sit and tell stories and tell us a lot about life. Some of the stories, I don’t know if I can repeat, but there was stuff there that just opened our eyes and showed us how cruel the world can be. That guy experienced war. He experienced some horrible encounters. He brought us up and opened our eyes to, ‘Hey, you’re in the incubation phase of your life right now. This isn’t real. This isn’t real life. Once you get out of here, the world becomes a much more serious place.’ He taught us a lot about that and would get really serious at times. That guy was a hero in our eyes. When he spoke, we listened. He’s also just a really good guy to hang out with and crack up and tell jokes. I really enjoyed being in his class. He was the most impactful teacher that I had.”

On the tennis court, the Daly twins were spectacular. As BC juniors, they were both selected as the Savannah Morning News’ 2010 All-Greater Savannah Boys Tennis Players of the Year after combining to go 39-1 while leading the Cadets to the GHSA Class AA state quarterfinal. At No. 1 singles, James went 20-0. At No. 2 singles, Madison finished 19-1. BC finished the season 19-1. As seniors in 2011, the Daly twins again were selected as the Savannah Morning News’ All-Greater Savannah Boys Tennis Players of the Year after leading BC to a Region 3-AAAAA championship and the GHSA Class AAAAA Final Four. James finished 22-0 and Madison was 21-2. They signed national letters of intent and played tennis at Wofford College.

Off the tennis court, the Daly twins benefitted greatly from BC’s JROTC program.

“JROTC was really good,” Madison said. “I think that’s one of the best parts about BC. You can really start to make some leadership decisions. You get a little bit of rank and you’re telling kids what to do and you’re grading them on their appearances. By the time we were seniors, I think we graduated as captains, we had some guys underneath us. It taught us about responsibility and having to give guys direction, having accountability. That’s how business is. That’s how management structure is. You’ve got your guys at the top, and your lieutenants beneath them, and your squad, your team members that do the work. It taught us a little bit about corporate structure.”