Better Together by

Chris Diffley, At-Large Director

One of my favorite aspects of our industry is the willingness to share knowledge to advance the industry as a whole which allows all of us to become better arborists. You see this most at conferences or events where we are gathered, from sharing different techniques or approaches to a climbing comp event or while grabbing coffee between sessions as your brain struggles to absorb the information just presented (maybe that’s just me). Regardless, I have seen and experienced it on an individual level throughout my career but had the opportunity to participate in it on a company level just recently.

Truetimber Arborists is a well-established company in the Richmond, VA, area with an incredible ethos for educating the public on the importance of proper arboriculture in their area through community engagement, as well as an incredible pathway for advancement for their employees through their training program.

Arborscapes where I work is also a fixture in our area, and as we grow, we’ve recognized the benefit of learning from others. Back in May, one of our owners, Nathan Morrison, visited the fine folks at Truetimber to see their operation and learn how a company with similar values works in a different market. They had such a great time that a couple weeks later Truetimber’s leadership team visited us for a few days.

Jeff Inman is the Risk Manager with Truetimber (and kind of a big deal in the climbing world even if he pretends otherwise), and provided some insights he had from the visit:

“My biggest takeaway anytime we do these kinds of things is that it’s so awesome to be an industry that is cool with that experience share. We’re two different markets with different approaches and different folks, but the collaboration and positive thievery that happened was great. Seeing y’all’s boldness was inspiring, but there’s also a level of inspiration and gratitude that comes when I assess who we are and where we’ve come from.

Ultimately, we’re all out trying to accomplish similar goals, but it was awesome to learn about how you all roll and try to apply some version of that to how we operate.

Chatting with John Maurice [Tree Care Operations manager] was awesome and his process was great to hear about. Cormac Nagan [Training and Development] is new to the role so it was cool to share how my position operates at TT to try to give him some pointers with implementing a training program.

This kind of thing should happen more with companies. Get out and invest in knowledge and that experience. Make new mistakes by learning from one another.”

I also spoke with Nathan for some of his takeaways:

“Learning how other companies train and create career paths for employees to provide a reason to stay with a company. Seeing how other companies are organized with different management, structures, and meeting rhythms. Watching how others utilize equipment to get work done efficiently and safely. Different marketing strategies to keep the phones ringing.

In fact, I learned a lot more than just these bullet points. I also learned that the relationship we built is long lasting, and we can call on each other at any time for advice. We are not competitors. We are all part of the same type of professional tree team that strives for excellence!”

As one does, we wrapped up the visit with some incredible Korean barbeque with our new friends we made along the way.