ADayintheLife:Interviewwith Ezekiel
Willard,RCA#774
Interviewed by Guy Meilleur; transcribed by Craig Southwell, RCA #692
GuyMeilleur: Thank you for agreeing to be interviewed for the American Society of Consulting Arborists’ quarterly publication known as The Consultant. We're interviewing a variety of members; veterans and newbies and mid-career Consulting Arborists. I think you might fit in that niche, so tell me, how did you become a Consulting Arborist? Where did you start?
EzekielWillard: Well, I got started in the green industry in Seattle many years ago. I got my first gardening job when I was about 20 or 21. I had a good friend who had been a gardener for many years. He kept asking me to check it out and see what it was like. At the time I was bartending, working nights. We went down to a gated community called the Seattle Highlands. A lot of those gardens were designed by the Olmsted brothers. It's a pretty special place, and I just fell instantly in love with it and started gardening there.
After a few years I realized I needed to learn more, so I started studying horticulture at Edmonds Community College. And then my wife and I moved down to LA, which did not work out for me. It's a beautiful place, but the city was not my cup of tea. I needed to finish school, so I went back up to Seattle. She stayed on there, while I went back to Seattle and finished school. One day a garden that I managed had a tree care company do some pruning on some big trees. I watched who I later found out was Dan Kraus -- who makes tree climbing look like nothing. He's more graceful up there than many of us are walking down the street. I thought to myself, why didn't anybody tell me that was a job? That started my journey into trees.
My wife and I looked at moving to Boise, Idaho. I interviewed with a lot of different companies. I was a very new little sapling arborist but boy, those interviews didn't go very well. There were really no companies I wanted to work with. We ended up chatting with a local lady who said, “We need people committed to proper tree care and education.” So we decided, well, let's move to a new state, let's have a baby, let's buy a house, and let's start a business. We just did it all at once. And from there it was all trees all the time. Consulting was a natural progression. I have some good friends over the years who are ASCA consultants, and I came to it a little late. I wish I'd known about it sooner, but the timing was right. I'd had time to learn, and learned how much I still needed to learn. So I joined ASCA in 2021 and went to my first conference in Lake Tahoe.
GM: Thank you, that was my next question.
EW: I was hooked. Before that conference, I was nervous. I thought, boy, this is, you know, the cream of the crop: How am I going to do this? I'm just a lowly tree geek. But the reception I got from the attendees and the members was just stunning. Everybody was very welcoming. The educational programs were second to none. So that was it, I have been every year since then. I got my RCA in 2022, then the TPAQ® in ‘23 when it got re-released. So that's the story of that journey
GM: How did you find starting a company to be? You said you were a bartender before, so you've got some people skills. Is that something you were able to maintain and still have a part-time consulting practice?
EW: Yeah, I'm definitely not a businessman. But I am a people person. So there were some things to learn. My wife helped a lot. She's a lot more numbers oriented than I was at the time. And I've got a really good team. I actually took a few years off to be a fly fishing trout bum, but got bored with that and came back to work. So
that tells you a little something about my sanity. And maybe how smart I am, but I’m fortunate to have a really good team. It is a lot of work for sure, but I have time to take up projects that are interesting, and just say no to stuff that doesn't sound like fun at all.
So, I think my retirement plan is to get one of those nice camper vans. And I'll put all my climbing gear, all my cool arborist toys, and my fly fishing gear in there, and just roam around the country, hanging out with cool trees and fly fishing. We'll see how that goes, but that's the plan.
GM: Well, you're some ways away from that, aren't you?
EW: A little bit, I'll be 56 this year, though, so it depends a lot on staffing and whether the company can operate on its own, and I think largely it can. So, we'll see. I'm not quite there yet.
GM: So, what is your company in Boise called?
EW: Idaho Tree Preservation. We pretty much stopped doing removals. It's not the kind of work we've structured ourselves to do. In a lot of cases, people were wanting to remove trees because it's messy, or some other odd reason. Our focus is preservation and improving health, so we have a Plant Healthcare Division. That really focuses on roots to shoots. We do a lot of soil remediation, trying to get the trees so they can fight their own battles. It's a different approach. Nobody's really doing that here, still. And good structural pruning and consultation and advice, and things like that.
GM: The market in Boise is keeping you busy, then?
EW: Oh my gosh. We're growing gangbusters. In fact, people complain about how quickly we're growing. But it's good for business, if nothing else.
GM: Well, it must be good for the trees if you're keeping them alive, and your clients are happy with them.
EW: Yeah. And one of my big focuses of late is the benefits of trees increasing as they age and get bigger. And I see a lot of fear around old trees, especially old trees with normal features of old trees, like decay. Or maybe they lost a branch or two here and there over the years. So a big mission of mine is to educate people and explain how old trees work. They have some kind of unfounded fear around them. They don't understand that a lot of this stuff is okay. So that's been a big focus of mine especially over the last handful of years.
GM: I've looked at a couple trees in Boise that you guys worked on, and talked with you about them. It’s clear that you have a successful approach. Several other companies have quit doing removals and gone to tree healthcare as their singular focus. All of them that I know of are getting by quite well. Do you refer work to other companies? How does that work?
EW: Yeah, absolutely. We're inundated with tree companies here. I think part of that was during COVID. We saw a big influx of people starting their own companies, and that's continued. The last time I checked, there was something like a hundred named tree companies around here, which is just crazy to me. But the reality is, and I think this is probably true everywhere, the vast majority are not aware of the standards, certainly not following them. There's a small percentage here of really high quality companies that we can refer to for things that we haven't built our company around doing.
So, we've got a good little network and we've got some young saplings coming up that have the right attitude, and I'm really happy to see that. People getting out, getting certified, taking classes. That's been a real problem here in Boise. When the chapter hosts training classes, in a lot of cases they have trouble filling the seats.
GM: That’s got to be tough.
EW: And that's really frustrating to see. We have operated at a loss on a lot of these. So the other areas where they get good attendance have subsidized Boise, or we hit the minimum number to be able to have the class. But we're starting to see those classes fill up more. We just had a TRAQ 3.0 here and that sold out, which is great, so I think we're going in the right direction, for sure, so that's good to see.
GM: You're on the edge of the Pacific Northwest chapter?
EW: Yes. As I understand it, we were originally part of the Rocky Mountain chapter, which geographically and growing condition-wise probably makes a little more sense. We're the easterly-most member of the PNW, down here in the desert. So, it's definitely a different environment than the coast, Oregon, British Columbia, Washington, places like that. And the Yukon is also part of our chapter.
GM: The Yukon, I did not know that.
EW: I know, right? Isn't that wild?
GM: Well, about consulting, you mentioned you've got your TPAQ appraisal qualification. I'm wondering what aspects of consulting are most interesting or rewarding to you, and which perhaps you haven't gotten into, or maybe shy away from so far?
EW: Risk assessment and mitigation is of particular interest to me. I don't think that is a consultant's only realm, but that's a big one. Appraisal is always fascinating and challenging. Every time is different, trying to answer that appraisal question. Those are fun. I've been doing a little bit of expert witness work, which has been really, really fascinating. A little daunting, I will admit.
GM: At first, for everybody.
EW: I think we probably all have a natural aversion to court. Most times, you go to court's because you got some kind of ticket to pay off. It's not usually a fun experience. But it's been fascinating to get a peek behind the curtain. I think I'll probably pursue more of that.
Not all consulting is very much fun. I just did a little project where all I did was get some soil samples tested. Quite honestly, it was pretty boring. But it does pay well, so that softens the problem.
GM: When you're first considering a job, or get a call, how does it work? You're in kind of a tight little valley there, so there's maybe not as much driving time as in some other markets. How does it go with your initial contact with clients?
EW: The process basically starts when they contact the office and talk to my office manager. She'll ask some general questions, to get an idea of what's happening. And then we'll set up an on-site meeting. There's a fee to go out there and chat and get the lay of the land. If they’re not close, there’s a standard rate for driving. If what they're asking can be answered right then and there, great. If it can’t, we'll create a detailed proposal and price it all out. That works pretty well for us.
GM: Yeah, rates and fees vary according to people's businesses and markets and personality. About consulting, I wonder why you think arborists shy away from work where they must defend their opinion. They avoid even a remote chance of going to court. What do you think is the obstacle there?
EW: I think having to defend your decisions or your statements can be a little bit daunting as well. I’ve been noticing lately that professionals online will see a photo of a tree that has a small cavity in it or something. So many initial reactions are, “Oh, you gotta cut that tree down because now that you've seen that defect. When it fails, you're gonna get sued.” And I'm like, wait, what? At the same time, they recommend work that is far outside the standards, damages the benefits of the tree, reduces its value, and increases risk. That's what they should be worried about. Not a little decay they can’t know anything about from a single picture.
GM: Troubles start with scaring the tree owner so they can kill the tree for cash. Troubles spiral by scaring themselves into thinking the tree had to be killed. That’s one theory.
EW: It's wild to me that they don't even think twice about stripping out and lion-tailing the whole interior of a tree. It's just a Monday morning. But boy, they see a tiny little cavity in a tree, and they just lose their minds. It doesn't make sense that defending your position is scary. Especially if you model your work and your actions around the standards and the BMPs and fulfilling your duty of care. That makes it a lot easier because you have the whole industry consensus behind you.
GM: I think you nailed it right there. We get our confidence from the team. The collective industry knowledge and our fellow consultants is our team. You're not out there alone. You can rely on other people's experience.
EW: Yes, exactly.
GM: So the more people learn, maybe the more confident they'll get, and the more they’ll trust the tree.
EW: Yeah.
GM: Where do you see your business in, let's say, 5 years, compared to its trajectory up to now? You're not gonna be in that RV going fly fishing quite yet, so where do you think you'll be?
EW: Probably not on the road quite yet. Maybe some test runs. We’ll continue to grow this company that is, as you say, trusting the trees. We're really pushing more into soil work, decompaction and radial trenching and things like that. We’re trying to make this environment better for the trees to grow and be vigorous and defend themselves with fewer or no chemicals at all. We’d like that to be a full-time division. Improving the root zone is such a critical thing, especially where we don't have the best soil to start with.
In Seattle the soil is amazing, and there’s lots of rain. I used to joke that our job was to kill the plants we didn't want, because everything else grew beautifully on its own. Anyway, I’ll continue supporting my amazing team. We're a bunch of tree geeks. We just love what we do, so I'm truly fortunate to have this group. Supporting them and helping them pursue their interests as well. When you hire somebody for one position, sometimes they get really interested in something else.
GM: Do you see any of them growing into the consulting side of things?
EW: I do. And we've certainly talked about maybe transitioning into more of a pure consultancy and maybe only pruning the really cool trees that we really want to, and kind of paring that regular tree care company side down and trying to grow that consultancy. I'm not convinced we have the market here, but maybe. It's something we're talking about and looking at, and I think if we could make it work, it'd be a pretty natural progression.
GM: Well, your market's growing, right?
EW: It is, it is indeed, so in 5 years we may be ready to slip right into that spot.
GM: You joined ASCA just 5 or 6 years ago and got your RCA and appraisal qualification. Aside from the conferences, what's been your interaction or experience with the organization? What do you get the most out of? What do you think could be added, perhaps?
EW: Well, I've made some amazing friends and met new colleagues throughout this journey, which has been wonderful. Jim Flott has been a big influence for me.
GM: He's nearby in Spokane, right?
EW: He's up in Spokane, yeah. I met him at the ISA conference in Portland. We bonded over being upset that people came in at the end of the class to fill out the CEU sheet. I was just so upset about that. Anyway, Philip Van Wassenaer has become a good friend and just knowing that community is out there has been great. I do a lot of conferences, TCIA and different ISA ones, but if it came down to only one a year, it would 100% be the ASCA conference. Hands down. It's the absolute best.
The speakers they get, just amazing. On The Exchange, I'm a bit of a lurker. I follow that with interest. There's a lot of really smart people who post on there. So that's a great resource. I don't know if I have any constructive criticism. They seem to be doing a great job. I really learned a ton from the Academy. I was not a great report writer before I went through that process. Getting the RCA has been one of the most positive things I've done in my career. More than the BCMA. The RCA has really opened doors to consulting for me.
GM: Glad to hear it, for sure. Is there anything I should have asked, or that you might like to add as we wrap it up here?
EW: Not that I can think of. I just want to keep old trees around if it's possible. If there's concern, let’s inspect them, and apply all the tools that we have at our disposal before we take these great old historic trees out. So that's my current passion.
GM: Consultants provide positive information and help people review things logically, step by step. The more knowledge we bring in, the less negative emotions, right?
EW: Yes, yes. Trees are good at what they do. They've been doing it a really long time. It's just trying to override some of the fear that even industry professionals have. We can do better. I’m just trying to do my tiny little part to help improve the industry in any way that I can.
GM: Thank you so much for being a part of ASCA and taking time to talk with me today.
EW: Absolutely, thank you so much, I appreciate it.
GM: Keep up the good work!
Watch the full interview here: https://youtu.be/EjJU-CcTxH8