How old is too old to pursue MD LTE cert?

T

tex-moto

New member
Location
SoutherN MD
Relatively new to tree buzz. Met JOHN-KAYS at TCIA this year, great dude, very personable like most guys I've met in the industry. First exposure was Sherrill treefest in NC this year. I'm a 49yo retired military guy with a full-time decent paying job but....I THINK ABOUT TREES 24/7. I've bought some gear, taught myself to climb with HH2 and teaching my son. Biggest challenge here in MD is the Licensed Tree Expert cert to cut anything over 20' for compensation. Takes 1yr under an LTE plus 2yrs college or 3yrs total under an LTE. Would love to apprentice under a MD LTE but would be 2-3 days a week. Just wondering if it's worth the chase!
 
If it's what you really want to do, Hell yes!
Cant speak of the Maryland rules specifically but sounds a bit more difficult to do than here in the OH.
 
Thanks JD! I'm originally from NE OH so cool to hear your perspective. It's tough to get a guy who has the LTE credentials to mentor/sign off on the experience reqt. b/c they see u as possible competition. I'm going to go to a week of Arbormaster tng this spring on my own dime bc I like the skills and don't want to just be another "chuck with a truck" . I probably won't ever be full time but would like to be safe/professional and use best practices. I really appreciate all of the tips, techniques, and critiques from this forum. Also a great father-son/daughter activity.
 
I'm in Baltimore and would also like to try and pursue some work in this industry, but i don't know any of the right people around here, considering all the certified arborists i know. NONE of them are climbers! (Also, the few working crews i've run into so far don't really speak much english and their safety standards have been pretty low.)
 
Welcome gentlemen. MD has some tough regs for sure. Sorry I don't know anybody there to connect you with. Barley, your comment re the non English speaking workers begs the question as to the quality of the LTE program.
 
i spoke briefly to the crew foreman who did speak some english... he said they usually work about 10 hours a day, starting at 6:30 in the morning. Their company is headquartered in NY with national offices and the average pay for this crew was about $15 per hour. Combined experience of the three climbers on site was about 40 years, give or take, but i saw some questionable stuff on the ground and in the trees.

These guys were contractors line clearing for BGE, and this particular crew was very lax. They got A job done. Showed up pretty early i guess, around 8:30am, and left pretty late, around 3:00pm with an hour lunch break around noon... hahaha. Total hours worked was about 4...

Three climbers in three separate trees with 4-5 ground guys just kinda milling around and screwing with throwline, or just watching. All three climbers were using DRT with blake's hitch and body thrusting, which was painful to watch, but handy since i've never seen it up close and tried it myself, later. Chainsaws were not tethered. At least one of the guys was cutting without a second tie in and almost hooked his boot with his loose lanyard while one-handed cutting below his feet.

Fatty was in a tree that didn't need trimming, just cutting away at semi-random deadwood. Skinny took about half an hour to set his TIP in another tree that didn't really need anything cut since it was nowhere near the lines they were clearing. The youngest guy was also the fastest and most thorough, but he was the one cutting one-handed without his lanyard attached. He did make up for it, though, once he got more than 15 feet up, and he did most of the work which actually did need to be done, as he was directly above the power lines and the trees he was in were pretty messy.

The groundies were fooling around with throwline, getting shit stuck in a tree and tangling stuff up until the foreman straightened them out, except for the one guy who was actually watching his climber and doing a passable job of paying attention... except that was Fatty's tree that didn't need to be trimmed...

The company has been running a couple crews through my neighborhood for a few weeks now, but i can't see any kind of pattern. They've been all over the area, sporadically. I have no idea when or if they're gonna hit my house or my neighbor's houses. WE actually need our lines cleared and i have a dead tree that needs to come out, which i THINK they would have to handle since half of it is ready to wipe out the supply line for at least 6 houses...

Will keep you posted if i see anything else interesting!

J
 
I'll check it out tomorrow, bed time.

I would be interested to hear from other Buzzers re state requirements for arborists vs ISA certs and qualifications. None here in OH.

Good thing?
Redundant?
 
There ARE some decent companies out here... i just don't have the experience and schedule conflicts are KILLING me, so i can't even TRY to get into this business right now, unless the right person pops up under the right circumstances at the right time! AAAAHHH! So i'll just keep climbing and learning until the time comes, right?

Seriously, though... i know at least two or three certified arborists that aren't climbers, am acquainted with several more. Two of them climb, but are out of my area and i don't know them well enough to ask for work, and the few companies i have looked at aren't hiring right now anyway.
 
Last edited:
quoted directly from the above pdf, i think the following paragraph explains enough of what i saw on that job site to "justify" poor workmanship... my emphasis indicated by bold and italic font.

"A Licensed Tree Expert is responsible for the quality and content of all work performed by those working under the license. An employee working under the supervision of a LTE may not be required to have a license of their own."

If i find a company willing to hire me, i don't necessarily have to be certified if i'm working under their license... but would eventually get my certs anyway.
 
as for the whole mexican landscaper joke scenario, it's kinda funny but i don't really care... i worked for a high-end residential landscape company for a few years and they brought in some southern workers that were awesome. Pretty sure most of the guys were Dominican, anyway. Our company did lots of hardscaping with natural stone and we ended up taking a couple of those guys out on a few jobs with us where they did some excellent stonework when we were short on regular staff one year. Normally they'd stay at the nursery and do most of the field and greenhouse work, but once we figured out we could bolster our two main landscape crews we took them out a lot more often...

funny story... this was around 9/11, after actually. The following season, one of our guys got stuck in customs because he had the same name as a guy on the watch list... his name was Juan, though! You know, of the thousands of hispanic terrorists... so he was caught up in the buerocracy for weeks until he finally was released and made it up to the nursery. We called him Pakistani Juan after that because half the people i worked with were REALLY REALLY clever. It was funny though. Pretty sure he ended up learning passable english and wound up staying in the US. I THINK i saw him once, years later buying lunch somewhere after i left that company.
 
I don't think the exam would be too hard. The material is all available online to study. I'd love to be given the chance to take it. I may be wrong but don't believe they will allow you to even sit for the test unless you have the 3yrs (verifiable via pay stubs,etc) experience under sponsor LTE or 1yr exp and 2 yrs college in forestry, botany, biology etc. There are grandfathered guys that weren't subject to these rqts.
 
I took a sample test that someone linked in another thread and scored 59% because i know very little about TREE care and plant biology... obviously not a passing grade, but if i studied the material i'd have passed easily.

If that is any indication of what the real tests are like, i could definitely pass.
 
The LTE exam is not difficult at all. It is similar to the CA exam. The hardest part of LTE is qualifying to take the exam. It's that whole chicken before the egg thing of working for an LTE for 5 years or college degree and 1 year under an LTE. Also, the test must be taken at the DNR office in Annapolis, there are no other testing locations. Just recently, as in 2015, MD DNR began requiring CEU's to maintain your license. Obviously they are not difficult to get.

If you want to get into tree work, you only need the LTE credential if you own your own company. Down the road, you can take the exam later and start your business. Along with the exam, there are insurance minimums that must be met to hold a Tree Expert license as well, similar to a pesticide license.

I am not that familiar with Baltimore, but down in Montgomery County there are a lot of good companies, even Northern VA has companies that do work in MD and have LTE's you could work under. Check out Mead Tree, Excel Tree Experts, etc.
 
Fair enough and I would say that learning via reading and test taking are skills that can be improved with enough work.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

New threads New posts

Back
Top Bottom