How did you get into tree work?

Started out, long time ago as a wee lad in a mixed traditional French,German Italian family.

Named as Richard Jr. my future was implied...I was supposed to be an accountant like my father.

But, the french and Italian influence said that the family hadn't produced a Priest in generations and it was about time for that to happen.

So, i went to school to become an accountant, "saw the future" and became an accountant who could write computer programs for accounting, and discovered along the way that I wanted a family, which precluded the priesthood.

(knowing what we know now, I could have been a priest and had a family, along with several willing "wives!")

Anyhow after 9 years in the financial trenches writing software I realized that tradition is fine, but a career it does not make.

The stress was killing my marriage and the stress induced a minor heart attack.

I quitthe "job" and tried working freelance programming but found that it wasn't the job, it was the career that I wasn't cut out for.

Seeing as I burned some bridges and didn't want back into accounting or programming, and since I had already done the dish washing stepping stone thing I figured self employment might work. So I started seal-coating driveways.

Took that money and parlayed it into some snow removal equipment, took those profits and rolled them into commercial lawn mowers and found myself doing small tree work, which I loved.

Then the Ice Storm of 1998 hit and in a semi-inspired moment conferred with the spousal-unit and sunk a bunch of money into proper tree tools and training for heavy tree work and climbing.

By 2000 I shut down the lawn care side of things and went strictly into trees. Been there ever since.

Not too glamorous, but it does serve as an illustration to many of my contemporaries who feel trapped in their present career. No matter how deep into a situation you are, you can always start over and find something you love to do!

16 years in the green industry now and I'm not quite finished, though I am finding myself browsing at potential adventures/careers!

Still, every morning I get up and think "I get to go to work" rather than "I have to go to work."
 
I worked at a restaurant for 14 years, started as a dishwasher at 14, left at 28 as the GM when i came to work one day and the doors were locked without notice. Took a year off doing small jobs and worked at a "junkyard" for a few months. I knew my boss from the restaurant/bar I ran and knew he needed somebody, so I started working for him, 7 years later, still here. I like the hours and the different jobs everyday but miss all the faces and people of the restaurant.
 
I got out of the US Air Force in 1978.
I figured I'd give college a try, with the GI Bill.
Biology was the only class in high school that I liked,
probably because the teacher was also the baseball coach
and gave me an A.
So I declared my major as biology. A buddy of mine convinced
me to try microbiology. So as I was trying to rack up micro
credits, I took a class called plant pathology. After that
class, the professor asked me if I wanted to go to grad
school and study forest pathology. I had never considered it.
I decided to do it. When I graduated, I was supposed to be
a researcher for tree diseases; most likely for the government. But the government was under a hiring freeze. So
I went down to the University in Madison (Wis) to a job office.
There was a potential job as an "arborist" which I had never
heard of. I flew to Long Island N.Y. and took a job with
American Tree. There was a mean little tyrant there named
Kay that really turned me off. I quit 6 months later and went
to work for a guy named Bart Fusco (Fox IPM). He taught me
how to climb, do removals, and generally love trees.
The rest is history...
 
loved being in the woods as a kid outside of pittsburgh, pa and climbed into the big maple by the creek almost every day.
went to college in rhode island and rode a bike out into the woods almost every day, ran away to ca. became a bike messenger, loved riding and being outside working. hiked and hung out and took alot of photos of trees, but never considered working with them. finally joined the volunteer urban forest group and got over-involved with them, planting, pruning etc, and got referred to a small company that was looking for some p/t help. started taking side jobs with various arborists that i would meet various places. but there were alot of aspects of urban tree work i didn't care for, so i was unsure about it as a career. (lack of imagination on my part) last company i worked with featured more developed climbing + pruning techniques, and after watching them a few times and thinking "that sure looks like fun..." it quickly got translated into "must try!"
when my friend and excellent tree mentor joey lynch took me up in the maine pines i knew it was for me. i got certified, laid out a bunch of cash for the basic climbing equipment, and started practicing whenever i could.
once i turned on a few other mental switches it was easy enough to start out on my own, might as well be able to write off all those expenditures!
 
Didn't anybody beside me get sucked into the profession because the guy running the saw was too fat to climb, didn't own a throwball, but needed the rope set?
confused.gif
 
Did about six months worth of office work and desided that I would most likley go postal. Fell trees with my grandpa and dad on the farm, moved north to the ADK area. Up there worked for some construction comps.After being the guy who went in to clear a lot for a house and cutting some big trees down Some I was sad to see go (huge Hemmlocks). Desided to get into the PHC part of tree service worked as a groundie for about 4 years under a certified arborist and from that just worked for tree services, till I married,moved,and planted my rear end at the university.Where I help maintain one of central NY campus.
 
My Father had worked as a logger back in the day when you were 30 miles back in the adirondacks,lived in logging camps and they floated the logs down river. Kind of stuff you see on the pbs station. He got me started cutting pulp as a teenager, my first saw was an old 5-20 homelite. Then it progressed to pulp and logging. On one job I met this fellow who had an elaborate system of pulleys to yank firewood across this ravine.He had an old doodlebug on the other side to pull with. Told him we could work together, it would alot easier with the skidder. We became friends and he also did treework so we started helping each other. The cincher however was my inlaws (typical) wanted a large maple cut.Even tho I was doing this everyday for a living they called the local tree guy who told them $75 to drop it and walk away. At the time I was cutting for a pallet mill for the grand price of $1.25/tree. Even with me felling 40 to 50 trees per day I couldn't make that kind of money. I wound up cutting their tree but started the ball rolling on tree work. Never got my $1.25 from them either.
 
Might as well use this post to introduce myself and say hi.
After 6 years of college/university (two years with biology/forrestry management, 2 with rockclimbing/guiding and 2 with religion) I didnt quite know what I was gonna do with my life. I lived in a small cabin with no water (except when it was raining) and did parttime work at the local retirementhome taking care of people that were unable to take care of themselves. My spare time was used to ski and rockclimb. I guess I might have been a kind of bum :-) Anyways, after living that life for a couple of years, I eventually got fedd upp with the way the management at the retirementhome treated the employers (mostly wommen), so I was on the lookout for something else to finance my living. I came across a company hireing treeclimbers, at least thats what I thought. At this point I had no idea that people actually lived of climbing trees. Well, I did have a couple of years with biology/forrestry management, I was a proficiant climber (rock) and I had occasionaly used my dads chainsaw from the age of 14 and up. So I applied and got the "job", but it turned out to be more of a franchise sort of thing. A one weeks training course in climbing and I was out in my districkt starting to work together with an other newbee. I retrospect, not a safe way to learn treework, but you learn fast. Now, 6 years later, I'm certified, out of the franchiseingthing and taken over this districts leading treecarecompany, as the former owner is on a 49 fot sailboat sailing arround the world.
 
Started long before I knew anything about ropes or trees.As a kid in extreme So.Cal. w/family living in Roseburg,Or.,went to see them every other year or so.Usually went I-5 which runs up thru the coastal fog belt(San Fran.,Eurika etc. etc.)and that means REDWOODS,SEQOIAS,HEMLOCS,SPRUCE,etc.,the grandest,proudest things I'd ever seen.A place where one can walk under them and hear the wind,and wisdom and sadness of centuries blowing in their conopies,smell the trees and loam,feel the moss and mist and know that there is GOD.Ended up moving there, later got a job w/ a co. doing controlled burns,digging fire trail,moved up to saywer.Anyway moved to Pa.Started in const.to get my feet. Got fed up w/const.and wanted to find some of that serenity again.Fell in w/an old timer who could do amazing things(I thought at the time).Learned old ways and now 17yrs. later still learning new ways.Never did get to climb any of those trees,closest thing around here is the occasional Poplar,oak,ash,what ever that has survived urban sprawl.But never will forget and someday hope to return.Still occ.feel those things and remember and still know there is GOD. And I think HE made trees so HE could climb and get away from the hustle and bustle and headaches of governing the known universe.(just my humble opinion that i guess could be titled "Why we climb"sorry for the rant.)
 
In a nut shell. It started with trees. My mom has video of me when I was two or three pushing sticks into the ground and saying there is a lumber tree and cutting it down and loading them on my toy truck. (my family are not in forestry of any kind, dad's a teacher)
Fast forward right out of highschool I was looking for work and saw a log truck thought I'd see how logging was done...ended up asking for a job got hired. Never saw a skidder before. Was handed a 066 and went to cutting.
People would ask me about a tree in their backyard and if it wasn't a notch n drop I couldn't do it. Being a jew I couldn't stand to turn down side work.
I got an offer to go to a camp in VA over christmas in 07 went for no particular reason (except maybe to see if there were any good girls out there) Ended up meeting James Earhart and he was coming out that summer and would teach me. He placed 18th at st louis days before (which is where I saw tree climbing for the first time)
The day before he taught me he was working with noel boyer the day Kristian got hurt so I really considered if I really wanted to do this. I went ahead. And got scared to death!!! not really
Continued logging and doing a little side work (bought a chipper and chip truck after the ice storm)until I got a offer for what ended up being an $8,000 forest service ice storm cleanup job in july of 09 and gave my weeks notice. Logging was way down also (2 pay cuts in a year). . About a year after I learned to climb I was self employed!!! Scary. But one of the best decisions I've made. Have been working with Noel to try to learn what I've got myself into!!! Crazy? Maybe
 
I needed a summer job to help pay for my big college tuition. I started out splitting firewood for a tree company the summer of my high school graduation. I eventually was needed as more manpower on larger jobs for the company that summer. I stayed working with the same company every summer though out college and I ended up working there for 17 years before starting a company with my brothers and here we are.....
 
Well I was telling this to some one recently and they said "well I guess you have saw dust in your blood then." In my blood yes, but even though my dad was a good ol boy logger for over half his life. We only fell a few trees together, and I was only a kid. He did teach me how to bust a$$ and work hard.
It's a long side story that I'll drop into a nut shell. My partner was pegnate and we were living in Tucson. She was adopted as a grandchild to a ex-midwife here on Whidbey whose husband Robert Stewart (rip) brought me into the world of arboriculture. I've been getting my hands on any info I can since ((bout 3 years now)
 
Welcome on the board Erlend.
I guess I always have been into trees, my professional career started with logging and utility line clearance in 1986. Still do line clearance, logging is now taken over by machines - can´t compete with a harvester.
Got into climbing as a consequence of facing a really bad high anxiety by starting up with cliff climbing. Anxiety vanished after some years, cliff climbing too - but I picked up tree climbing and tree care. Since then things have escalated and I am currently managing a tree care / Utility line clearance company.
 
I'v been asked this question alot and get the same crossed eyed look from every one I tell expecially other tree workers.
I just woke up one mourning and thought to my self I think I'd like to do tree work. Within a mounth I bought a saddle rope and spikes. I climbed in my parents back yard for a while on my time off. I soon realized I needed some one to show me how ist done before I kill my self. I started working with a guy who lived in my parents neighborhood part time while I worked full time at a desant job doing Industrial plant maintenance.I soon gave up that job to do tree work full time. I read every Shigo book I could get my hands on attended every seminare I could find. I love It. Been in for about seven years now and Im learning something new every day. I am a CA and cant picture my self doing any thing else.Now if I could just learn to spell or figure out how to get spell check!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

New threads New posts

Back
Top Bottom