How many of you guys have worked for davey or have been trained by a former davey emp

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greenguy

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I currently work for davey and enjoy it I have meet alot of climber's that either worked for davey or were trained by someone that was. I 'm interested in your opinions about the company or any stories you have relating to this?
 
I worked for the local R/C office for 2½ years. After the first 6 months, my foreman fired me. A month later, he went to Ohio for D.I.T.S., got drunk in a bar one night and was thrown in jail for starting a fight. 2 weeks later, the boss called me up and invited me to dinner at his house. He offered me more money ($14 per hour vs. the $12 I had been making) and foreman position. And another $1 raise after 90 days. I took it and ran a crew for 2 years, never got another dime over the $15. I learned a lot there, got to play with lots of expensive equipment and tackle lots of huge jobs. I did about 150 crane removals in that time. I also pushed myself and my body farther than I should have, trying to keep numbers up for the boss. When I came back in the office early one day without completing a job, and told the boss I was too whooped to do it, he fired me.

Now I work a little slower, a little safer, and make a lot more money. But I couldn't be where I'm at if I hadn't been where I was. :angel:
 
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I never worked for DAVEY. HOWEVER!

My high school tech teacher worked for them YEARS ago
Dr. Ryan worked for them... YEARS ago
and this lecturer Carmine Serpe worked for them YEARS ago. When I asked Dr. Ryan? how he knew all these guys... sure enough it was through DAVEY Tree.
 
hooks

We wear hooks because we have to meet a quota every day . I don't care what you say , hooks are alot faster than rope climbing any day. If you ropeclimbed every tree you would never complete the required 16-20 trees around here. Another thing Davey training sucks . I have learned more by doing the "ilegal" side jobs than company policy. Granted my Master Foreman came from Santa Cruz and he whoops ass, learned alot from him.:blob2: :angel:
 
I started with Davey in 1967. Went to climbing school and stayed in the old barracks on Water Street in Kent. Worked 2 summers while in college. We were not allowed to touch a live tree with spikes. Quality and satisfied customers were the important things. Reclimbed many trees to paint a shiner I missed in the top. Best day was pruning out about 30 80' pinoaks between 2 of us. This was all body thrust climbing, no footlocking or ascenders. But I was also 35 years younger.

Bob
 
If you have a personal problem with a company, be it large or small, Davey or Down To Earth, there's no reason to slander it anywhere. I had a good experience with a Davey employee today, and I hate slander.

Nickrosis
 
I new a guy who started with Davey in northern Ill in the late '70's. he said that branch policy for trimming water sprouts was to use the sharpend back of speed saws as a machette.

Daveyclimber, if what you say is seriouse, you have learned to cut wood, not care for trees. If you would like to ingage in a seriouse discussion as to why hooks are bad for trees, read some of the links on decay in trees first.

http://search.dogpile.com/texis/search?q=decay+trees&geo=no&fs=web
 
Promoting the level of service industry-wide is a passion of mine, no doubt. A lifetime work-in-progress for me, certainly.

This present discussion is nowhere near productive. The whole title of it indicates Davey-bashing. What if I someday own a billion dollar tree care company? I try to keep that in mind.

Nickrosis
 
Of course not. We'll use laser pruning devices from the ground or from the hands of jet-pack equipped arborists.

flamethrower.gif


Suppose I do have employees doing something in violation of the ANSI standard one day. --I'm sure it will happen at some point. :rolleyes:

I would hope that you would follow biblical standard of problem solving and first approach me personally about the issue. Tell me that you're concerned about it and would like to see it resolved.

Second, bring in someone else who would have an opinion I would respect. In this scenario, it would be difficult for me to misunderstand the message. If I allowed it to continue, I would be clearly bottom-line oriented. If I stopped it, I think everyone would benefit.

Suppose I don't put a stop to the practice, go to the third step and bring the subject before my peers and others in a constructive manner. If after that, I still don't change the policies - you at least made the best effort possible, and it would be perfectly acceptable to degrade your perception of me and the company as a whole.

To skip to the last step, as it appears this thread is doing, is doing an injustice to the victim. From this day forward, I refuse to speak poorly of other companies UNLESS I have gone through that process. I've tried this in the past, but now I commit to it 100%. Otherwise I'm a hypocrite.

Nickrosis
 
Davey Tree Inventory

I worked for Davey on a PG&E Tree Line inventory in 95-96 all over N. California. We were not tree trimming but philosphy and trimmers were around us a lot.
It seems to me... and this is true for all large companies... that they do what the client asks for. If PG&E bids line clearance with no regard for tree health... should they not even bid? and let Asplundh or whoever get the contract?

Just a point to ponder...
 
Yes...it's definitley about the money.

That is part of the reason why I work for a city, and why I worked hard to be in charge of my own department.
So I could set standards and stick by them.

Of Course, as a city we usually no money or no time... but hey...what job is perfect?
 
Most of you forget that money seems to make the world go around. I agree that spikes should not be used. But when that is what is required by the customer or you don't work that is what you have to do. Until the public raises all kinds of hell about the way the power company wants work done nothing will change. Most of the guys on utility accounts do not have the ability to do tree work without buckets or spikes. I recently took part in a testing program for tree worker cert. Their were foreman their that were 10 -12 year men that had never even seen a throwball. out of 20 at least 15 failed that climbing part of the test. The test is not hard. At this particular session all of them worked for asplundh ar townsend. The gear they climb with was so out dated it was sad.
 
We have a lot of Asplundh workers around here, they cannot climb on personal gear and are given the cheapest stuff around. Topmen with 009's doing production climbing:confused:
 
I climb for Davey, and though I do not have any experience in aboriculture outside of Davey, I must say that most of what I've read in this thread regarding Davey is untrue, but I speak only for the office I work from and the residential (not utility) division.

From what I have seen, almost any company that predominantly does utility work (line clearance, slashing, easments) is bound to not have a lot of enthusiastic spurless climbers. And also have a lot of fellows that spend most days in a bucket. For the most part, they are not trimming trees for aesthetics or health, and therefore don't concern themselves with them.

In the division of Davey that I work in, we do a lot of thinning of tall conifers. Often we're confronted with douglas-firs or incense cedars well over 120' with the first branch at 60-80' which may be drooping or just epicormic fluff. And if you were to try and toss a throwbag you'd have difficulties because the trees are often in greenbelts and therefore are surrounded by understory trees and shrubs. So I find myself spurring trees that I'm pruning sometimes. On a douglas-fir of any significant size gaffs don't even penetrate the cambium thru the bark.

Aside from tall confers tho, all the pruning I do is accomplished w/o spurs. And everyone I work with in Davey would say the same.
 
Originally posted by TreeCo
Nick,
Do you really think that the steps you outlined haven't been tried in the power line trimming industry?

Perhaps, but they need to be followed by the members of this forum. It's the lashing out that people get into on this site that was part of the reason I've stayed away for a while.

Nickrosis
 
hey Nick!

Glad you stopped by. JPS filled us in on why you haven't been around. :p

Back to the topic, line clearance companies are NOT in the tree care business. They are in the 'vegitation control' business. Trees under power lines are WEEDS, regardless of species or size. Line clearance is just that, they have no inclination of maintaining WEEDS that are interfering with their primary job function- clearing the LINES.
 
Why don't they put them underground?? Never have got that. Works just fine in other parts of the world. Guess they prefer all them costs spread over a lifetime instead of upfront.

Hope all is well Nick
 
With the high volatage transmission it is cheaper to maintain the lines overhead in rural areas then to run them UG. I heard a disertation on it once and think the servicable life of UG is 2/3 of OH.
 

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