WASTE HANDLING EQUIPMENT EAST
April 2014 • 9
Tree Doctor from 8 That modest start, just Coelho, one other worker, the chipper and a truck-allowed them to develop their customer base within an 8 to 10 mile radius from Warren. “I focused at the beginning on smaller residential jobs and then decided that that was a pretty good place to be,” he said. “Other companies start out with a plan to grow as big as they can, as fast as they can — I didn’t see us doing that at all. We deal with neighbors and friends and we rely heavily on word of mouth. We’ve done just fine with that approach.” Growth is inevitable Though huge growth wasn’t a consideration, Coelho’s business still grew large enough for them to need to add people and upgrade their existing equipment. Coelho added two more workers to his team. He also traded the smaller chipper for several larger Morbark units over the years: first on a Model 2100, then on to a 15-inch Morbark Tornado. From there, he acquired the unit they are currently operating, a Morbark Beever M18R chipper, purchased through the Swansea, Mass., branch of Schmidt Equipment. “Over the years, I’ve established a great working relationship with the folks at Schmidt,” he said “They are the John Deere and Morbark dealers for this area. Since I’ve used John Deere equipment, backhoes, skid steers and so on, for a long time, I’ve always enjoyed working with them. They will bend over backwards to make sure I am taken care of, and Jeff Mansfield, the salesman who calls on me, is both knowledgeable and hands-on-something we need more of in this business. So when it came time for me to upsize my chipper, I went right to them.” Over time, the steadily rising costs to dispose of debris in the eastern Massachusetts/Rhode Island area necessitated the most recent upgrade in chippers. “Those costs just seem to keep on rising, so the less I have to pay to dispose of wood waste, the better our bottom line,” Coelho said. “Our M18R handles just about all the wood waste that we generate as part of our everyday business, so not only is it more productive, it also benefits us by reducing trips to the landfill.” What’s in a name One of the questions Coelho said he frequently receives is the origin of the “Tree Doctor” name. Though it was not his first choice for a business name, he now sees how much sense it makes. “I was originally going to call my operation ‘New England Tree Service,’ but a guy I used to work with, who had a small trimming business on the side, already had that name tied up. So, I decided I needed something catchy. When I go to a job, more than anything, I feel I read the tree; it tells me what needs to be done. So I see myself as something of a physician to that tree and the name “Tree Doctor” came to mind. Looking back, I think the name alone has helped us get a lot of business.” Today, the Tree Doctor and his crew, maintain a decent backlog of work. Coelho is proud of the fact that, though they might do five jobs in one day, they only do one job at a time. His crew is able to do that using the M18R chipper, an International aerial lift truck with 55-feet of working height and a couple of chipping trucks. “I only have one complete crew, and we won’t leave a job until it’s finished,” he said. “The most I will do is leave one man behind doing the stump work while the rest of us move on to another job. We take a lot of pride in our work and try to leave a job cleaner than it was when we got there. The time it takes to blow the gutters out, make sure the walkways are clean, the decks are all clear and so on can make a huge difference in customer satisfaction.” Making the list The extra effort Coelho puts forth has made an obvious difference, both in his steady workload — he counts more than 70 accounts as regular customers — and in his company’s reputation for quality and dependability. Today, The Tree Doctor holds a pris-
Richard Akervik guides material into the infeed of the Tree Doctor’s M18R Beever tine rating with the area’s Better Business Bureau and he has garnered an even more prestigious endorsement as well. “A while back, I got a call from the people at Angie’s List telling me that they were contacted by so many of our customers giving us a AA rating that they wanted us to be one of their preferred companies. That is a nice thing to hear, but it does not surprise me. We’ve worked very hard to always do a good job,
and the equipment we use plays a big role in that as well. If we had a chipper that was plagued with problems and frequently breaking down — like those some of my colleagues run — we wouldn’t be able to service our customers the way we do now. So everything we bring to bear, from the smallest chain saw to our aerial lift truck to the Morbark M18R, is a part of the bigger picture. After all, even the best doctor needs good instruments.”
At last fall’s Tree Care Industry Association Expo in Charlotte, NC, Morbark introduced this prototype Beever M18R outfitted with the additional capability to transport the company’s new Boxer mini-skid steer loader and two attachments. The M18R, similar to the one used by the Tree Doctor, has the size and capacity to handle trees and tree trimmings requiring the use of a unit like the Boxer. For more information on Morbark equipment, visit their website at www.morebark.com.