GOSHEN -- A local company decided to, well, spruce up the neighborhood by adding 600 trees to its property in the industrial area on the city's south side.

Hertzler Systems Inc., a software company at 2312 Eisenhower Drive North, used the empty half of their two-acre property to create what should be a nice wooded area in 10 or 15 years.

Aaron Sawatsky, Goshen City forester, said Hertzler acted "just kind of their own initiative to work at greening their site, greening the industrial park and taking personal responsibility for carbon offsets."

According to company President Evan Miller, the project came out of a desire to take action for environmental sustainability. "In our business, we're always on the road to meet our customers. This means we fly and drive a lot. We felt we needed to do something to give something back to sustain the health of our environment," he said in a written statement. "Over the last several years, the unoccupied land became overgrown with weeds and brush. It was an ugly waste of space. In 10 or 15 years we expect we'll have a nice little woods that provides shade and shelter for birds and other animals."

Sawatsky said he hopes other companies take Hertzler's lead.

"First of all, that it's happening in the industrial park, I think, is really important," he said. "Historically and traditionally our industrial zones are blighted and really poor stewards of good ecology. To plant those trees there is a symbolic act as well as a practical act of air quality, water quality and aesthetics."

"It's a pretty powerful statement of awareness about ecological realities and the way humans impact ecological realities, both positively and negatively," the forester said. "The model I think is really, really important for other businesses, other industries to see somebody taking a relatively small plot and planting it to trees."