Who Cares?

By Andrew Ross

I have had conversations during my tree care career that motivated me to get involved with the industry and TCIA so that, hopefully, I can help affect good and positive change for our industry. Here are a few.

A customer called and said he didn’t like the cost we had estimated for his tree work. He said he liked the old days when he could get a lot of tree work done for next to nothing – he liked to have his tree work done when a climber he knew needed some quick cash to buy drugs.

I thought, “So here’s a customer who really doesn’t care about anything but saving a few bucks. He doesn’t want to help out this guy that has done his tree work for cheap for all these years, he doesn’t want this guy to kick his drug habit, and he doesn’t care if this guy loses his life. He just wants to save money at whatever the cost to the climber. He also assumes everyone in the industry is the same way. The next time this customer called, I doubled the estimate, didn’t negotiate our proposal, didn’t get his work, and he never called us back again.

We were working a government job in a very high-profile area. The first few days we were very excited about the opportunity to prune trees that millions of visitors from all over the world would walk by. The specification said to prune one-inch deadwood and larger, but we wanted it perfect. We went as far as hand picking the tooth-pick sized deadwood from most of the willow oaks we pruned in an attempt to make it perfect. The official that reviewed our work called and asked for a meeting. I was sure he was going to say he was impressed by the impeccable work we were doing. Instead, he informed us that the “stubs” we had left from the (proper) pruning cuts were too far out from the tree, and that we had to go back and flush-cut them. I gently informed the official that was not good tree work and went against the pruning standards. The meeting abruptly ended.

The next day I was asked to meet three of the agency’s certified arborists for another meeting. The three certified arborists, upon review of the trees, all quickly agreed that we had to flush cut the collars off of these relatively young (12-inch DBH) willow oaks. I again objected, and handed them a copy of the A-300 pruning standards and suggested they review them. Then they said something I’ll never forget.

“Listen, there are three ways to do things – the right way, the wrong, and our (agency name) way. If you want to get paid, we suggest you do it our way.” I left the meeting in disbelief. I called around to ask several peers what they would suggest. I got answers such as, “do whatever they want you to do,” or “find out what kind of booze the guy likes, and buy him some.” I thought to myself, “Surely, this agency wants the best for their trees,” so I went against these suggestions and asked for a meeting with the main boss.

The meeting was uncomfortable and contentious. I left the meeting with a moral victory (that we had done the right thing), but the official had a surprise waiting for me. Following that meeting, he found something “wrong” with every tree that we pruned thereafter, so we had to go back and re-climb almost every tree that we did (for him) from that day forward. In addition, we have not worked for this agency since. I see their existing contractor work with missing PPE and damaging hundreds of trees a year with poor pruning practices, and yet they get this agency’s work year after year.

In our company we have developed a way to make sure that customers care. We have a subtle interview technique with potential customers, and charge a small initial consult fee. This immediately weeds out the price-only shoppers, and sounds more than reasonable to customers looking for a professional firm. So, it’s a double win. This technique has allowed us to grow a customer base that recognizes and values what we have to offer. However, we know that the majority of the general public does their shopping and decision making with primarily one thing in mind – price.

In my opinion, there are too many arborists out there who have invested their lives, time, effort and money to deliver the best service they can. However, they often find themselves in this awkward situation where the customer doesn’t care about safety, doesn’t care about quality and only cares about getting someone (often anyone) to do their tree work “cheap.” When a customer finds a low-cost provider (often uninsured, untrained or worse) to perform their work, these “semi”-professional companies aren’t familiar with accepted industry practices. In this situation, both customer and service provider “don’t know what they don’t know.” Nothing good can come from this.

So – who cares? Who is going to take the lead here?

How can we change the way the public “cares” about what we do? How do we increase the general public’s awareness that safety and quality are an inextricable part of the job?

I am passionate about getting to the root of this problem. If we can develop a way to manage this scenario better, I believe many lives can be saved, and our industry can continue our growth with professionalism and respect.

I care.



Andrew T. Ross, CTSP, is president of RTEC Treecare, an accredited company in Falls Church, Virginia, and the newest member of TCIA’s Board of Directors.