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How We Became Arborists: Career Stories from Davey Experts · Talking Trees with Davey Tree

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_06: Welcome to the Deby Tree Expert Company's podcast, Talking Trees.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_06: I'm your host, Doug Oester.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_06: Each week, our expert arborists share advice on seasonal tree care, how to make your trees thrive, arborists' favorite trees, and much, much more.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_06: Tune in every Thursday to learn more because here at the Talking Trees Podcast, we know trees are the answer.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_06: We have something very special for you this week.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_06: Oftentimes, I ask the guests, how did you become an arborist?
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_06: Why is the job right for you?
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_06: Well, we went in and took a look at all the episodes we've had over the last three years and pulled eight different arborists, and I think you'll enjoy hearing all the diverse answers to that question.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_06: First up is Brad McBride from Cleveland.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_06: So, Brad, I wanted to ask you, how did you get into this?
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_05: Why is this job right for you?
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_05: Well, that's a good question.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, first of all, I like being outside.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I, you know, as a teenager, I liked cutting grass.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_05: I was a you know landscaper, and I really enjoyed that.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_05: And while I was in college, I started studying biology and I, you know, realized that Davy Tree was a great place to work because I had gotten a job as a summer intern for two years doing landscaping, and I realized how great the company was and how many different career paths there were.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_05: So I started to kind of study people that were in the company and see like, oh, who, you know, who out there has a job that I think I would like to have after college?
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_05: And I started to, you know, look at people and then reached out to them and asked them how they got the job they were in.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_05: And then, you know, as I was going through school at Muskingham College, you know, studying biology, I made it pretty clear to myself that I wanted to work for Davy Tree.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_05: So I, you know, I geared myself towards botany and studying trees.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_05: And after college, I, you know, got into urban forestry, which was a great career choice for me.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_05: You know, it made me passionate about trees and you know, challenges myself, and you know, it's something that I enjoy.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_05: It's hard work.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, so if you're gonna work hard and you're gonna dedicate yourself to your career, you might as well find something you like to do and something you can enjoy.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_06: I've interviewed Chelsea Abbott from the Davy Institute many times, and we always have a great conversation.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_06: If you listen carefully, I think you can actually hear her smile.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, oh, so this is funny enough, this is actually something that I learned about while speaking at a conference in Finland.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so they were actually doing a study where they tested the cortisol levels of people before and after, um, spending time in nature to actually show that it dropped.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_02: And they were trying to build a prescriptive approach, meaning, oh, do you need to do 15 minutes every two days or two hours, you know, once a week?
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_02: And it sort of just opened my mind up to this whole thing.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_02: And then once I started to look at my own career, um, I'm a plant pathologist.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_02: I mostly do diagnostics and teach people, but also do a lot of uh, I would say, field diagnostics.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_02: So a lot of my now experience with nature is kind of diagnosing dying trees.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_02: And one of the things I noticed was I started to get almost a little bit um like they were an object, not a living thing.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_02: And I became detached from nature and myself and many other people that I work with and teach kind of got into this line of work because we love nature.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_02: And when it starts to get detached, uh you lose that feeling of connectedness and, you know, benefit of it.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_02: So there was something that was important, and I would say right for me, because I wanted to sort of reconnect, learn how to reconnect, but I also wanted to try to teach people in my industry, you know, maybe let's let's get back to the reason we got into this industry.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um, instead of seeing that as yet another tree that we need to take down or yet another oak that declined for whatever reason.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_02: You know, they're living beings part of an ecosystem, and they're also special to people.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_06: Aaron Hoot from Dallas had an interesting journey to become an arborist.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_08: Um, I got here a lot later than I should have, that's for sure.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_08: I I went to college for uh for journalism, actually, um, and studied journalism and philosophy, and that kind of led me towards not doing it because it's an interesting state of the world right now in journalism and integrity and all of that.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_08: Um, but on the side, I I mean, I grew up in the country.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_08: On the side, I worked, I did tree work.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_08: I did just with a little mom and pop, one-person company, two-person company.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_08: And then uh my cousin um is a wetland restoration expert in the Houston area, and he actually does removes invasive species of plants and repopulates with native plants to help the ecosystems of waterways return to correct as while they're degrading.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_08: And I went to school in San Marcus, Texas, which has um a spring-fed river that is federally protected because it has an endangered species of um of uh aquatic rice that only grows there.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_08: And we were able to get funding from the city to have to do the same work there.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_08: And I was able to, being living living there, I was able to be the main contractor there and actually change the environment of these rivers and watch all these elephant ears that are being removed allow the banks to expand 30 feet back out to what they're actually supposed to be because the siltbeds have been created and take out hundreds of invasive trees of Lugustrum and China Berry and all that in areas where the other plants are being um shaded out and build berms to rebuild the banks of the river and help the river them stop collapsing.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_08: And so that really got me into a mindset of not just doing tree work, but that there was more to it.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_08: And then actually I kind of looked into being at Davy.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_08: Um I got I met my wife and we got married, and she wanted to move back up to where her family was.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_08: And I said, Well, if I can find a good job, I'm fine with that.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_08: And I got on Indeed and found out there was a company like Davy, and I had no idea there was a tree company that had a conscience and benefits.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_08: And I was like, Well, that's a career right there.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_08: So I applied and I got the job here.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_08: And I've been with Davy about five years and worked my way up from trimming into plant healthcare and now into sales arborist.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_08: And I just really like that I'm allowed to do what's right for the trees.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_08: Like you're talking about, not just go out there and try to get a sale.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_08: I'm allowed to tell people no.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_08: I'm encouraged to educate people on what's right for their trees and what to look for.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_08: Um, I love it when I I've mentioned something to a customer and they say, okay, and then I get a text message from them a year later and like, oh, is this what you were talking about?
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_08: I saw some.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_08: And hoping it's not because I probably told them about a bad fungus, but I love that they're engaged and they're reaching out and keeping uh keeping up with me.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_08: I have people that I see once a year, people I see every few years, and I have people I see five times a year because they're hyper-aware, because they've actually gotten themselves into that cosm of knowing and thinking about trees on a on a broader or a grander level and a more minute level at the same time.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_06: When I interviewed Jason Parker from Pennsylvania, he was overseeing a special program called Saluting Branches.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_04: Um, so I started with Davy actually when I was 18 years old over in East Cleveland.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and I've been at my current location in Horsham for the last 20 years.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_04: Um I love being outside, um is kind of how it started.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_04: Um, not to mention that at least uh in in Ohio, the Davy was paying better than everybody else.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_04: So um that was a good motivating factor.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_04: Um but uh it's kind of gotten in my blood.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_04: Um I've always sort of had a strong suit towards management, always been in some sort of um you know leadership type role.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_04: Um so it's kind of a good fit um between the two the two aspects of it.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_04: Um I think now it's the the meaning is sort of changing to me.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_04: The things like this Palmer project where we're preserving historic trees, um preserving green spaces, um, as I've had kids means a lot more to me than uh than than just the being outside aspects.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_06: During a conversation about zombie trees, Kevin Sproul from Canada explains what drew him to this profession.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, well, I got into this job of being here about six and a half, seven years.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: I went to school for forestry way back when, it feels like another lifetime ago, but I went to school for uh forest technology, got my two-year post-secondary uh diploma from our local institute of technology, and then I worked for a little bit doing some surveying and I was working out of town quite a bit.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: I still loved the tree work, but I was you know hoping to get something that was a little closer to home, and so I stumbled upon Davy Tree that uh does tree services, but local here in the city, so I can be at home every night.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: So it's kind of a perfect blend for me and my family.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_06: And tell me what you get out of your job.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_06: What what's the best part about it for you?
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I I love the trees.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: People often ask me about that.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: I love the trees, you know.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: I I just love talking to people about their trees, and um, you know, I feel honored that they kind of invite me into their home and share their emotional experience with their own, with their own trees and shrubs, because there is a bit of an attachment there.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_06: Like many arborists, Taylor Judd from the Denver area started his career in forestry.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I got into this uh back in 2016.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I guess just to back up a little bit further.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: So in college, I I I'm an agriculture science guy.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: I ran a grain elevator in central Illinois.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um so corn and soybeans, that's my background.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then um I was in the National Guard simultaneously.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um I needed to find a different unit um due to like an MOS job change.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I uh called up Wyoming and they took me in in their National Guard program and then um found a job through Davy.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um because uh, and you know, granted, forestry wasn't a degree I could have gotten at my my university, but I was always interested in it.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um dendrology, uhboriculture.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: I took some classes, um, but you know, never really put it to work because I just went right to the grain industry.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so then when I moved out here, I learned that you could climb trees uh and make money doing it.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: And that's kind of what what paved the way at first.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: So I started out as just a regular groundsman climber, uh, then moved into foreman, uh, then crew supervisor, and then now I'm sales arborist.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, start it started at the very bottom, drag and brush, essentially.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_06: Aren't you glad you don't have to climb trees when it's over 100 degrees?
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, certain days like this, I I definitely don't miss it, but I usually do miss it.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, definitely being with the crew, the camaraderie, um the really difficult tasks that often get overlooked, these giant mature trees.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and there's quite a bit of building and and home renovations going on in our city because it's old Denver, and um, you know, there's some you know, a lot of mature trees that are being tried, you know, trying to save um while a new house is getting built next door.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: So some really technical um pruning and and removals um in such tight spaces.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_01: So um yeah, days like this, it I'm gonna run some uh ice-cold Gatorade out because yeah, that's gonna be a brutal day for for everyone out there for sure.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_06: Joe Berg from California answers the question.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_07: Yes, I I I I got a degree in forestry, University of Missouri.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_07: Um you know, worked for the Forest Service in various uh places and and and got a uh position out in the Sierras in California.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_07: And uh when I moved out here I I just fell in love with uh with the mountains and wanted to be closer to here.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_07: Uh and you know, funny story about that too is is there's a there's a sequoi giant sequoia park called Calavera's Big Trees, uh that's up in the Sierras.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_07: And and I just was you know, I was 24, 25, very, you know, ignorant about a lot of things.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_07: I was like, oh, this is a big tree park.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_07: It kind of happened upon it, it didn't know anything about it.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_07: So I pull into the park and start walking down the trail, and I see these sugar pines, which are the the largest pine tree in the world is in California, another cool tree that's in California, you know, and this tree is probably six, seven, eight feet in diameter, you know, 220 feet tall.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_07: And I'm like, oh gosh, this what a cool tree.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_07: These are the big trees in this park.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_07: And then I turn a corner and actually see a giant sequoia for the first time.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_07: And I mean, the size of that was uh, you know, astronomically larger than the sugar pine.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_07: And so I'm like, yep, I I'm I'm good with that.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_07: I'll I'd love, you know, I'm into trees, this is the place to be.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_07: There's we've got the the largest valley, we've got some of the largest trees, we've got some of the oldest trees in the world, um all sorts of diversity depending on where you go.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_07: So for a tree person, uh California is uh is not bad of a place to be at.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_06: So and finally, Natasha Bachelor from Massachusetts tells us how she became an arborist.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_03: Um yeah, so I I went to school for engineering and um realized that wasn't what I wanted to do.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_03: So I I I stumbled into an arbiculture class and it was just absolutely everything I wanted.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_03: It was uh trees and people.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_03: And then that's pretty much what arbiculture is.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_03: It's it's our outdoor environment and and having people kind of live in with them and cohabitate with them, which is it's just uh 27 years ago.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_03: I started with Davy and I have not looked back.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_03: It's been a great career, and I I just arbiculture is like one of the best professions on the planet, as far as I'm concerned.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_06: Well said, Natasha.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_06: That is the way to wrap things up.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_06: I hope you enjoyed this week's podcast as much as I did.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_06: It was a lot of fun to put together.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_06: Okay, tree lovers, tune in every Thursday to this Talking Trees podcast from the Davy Tree Expert Company.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_06: I'm your host, Doug Oster, and we've got a lot of interesting things planned for you in the future.
• 13:33
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• 13:37
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• 13:42
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• 13:43
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• 13:47
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• 13:53
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• 13:58
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• 14:02
  SPEAKER_06: We'd love to hear from you.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_06: And as always, we'd like to remind you on the Talking Trees podcast trees are the answer.