Made a great contact today ...
mattfr12 and I got together today and I had a great time seeing what a real deal tree service is like. Matt asked me if I could spare a ground worker for a day due to an unplaned vacation that left them needing a ground guy.
Needing a day off myself, I shifted the days work to tomorrow and gave him my best man and Nephew, JohnBoy. I wanted to give JohnBoy an opportunity to work for someone other than myself as a ground guy.
I was proud of him because he stepped right in and did a great job, even taking over as rope man for Matt, who was in his brand new bucket truck (4000 miles). I had some evaluations to do, but I ended up sticking around and talking with Matt's Dad as we watched the work progress. I think JohnBoy Picked up a log that impressed everyone, I think Matt took a photo of it with his phone, maybe he'll post it.
And progress it did. Matt worked smoothly and eficeintly from the bucket, quickly dismantling a small Maple in a housing project with plenty of traffic and onlookers around. It was great to be on a job so well run but with zero responsibility. I was pretty much a spectator although Matt's Dad and I got to talk quite a bit.
It was a short day and after lunch Matt and I went on a couple of estimates together and we've agreed to work the jobs together, and hooking up with Matt and his Father will benefit both our companies, mine being rather small potatoes compared to his equipment wise.
Matt's got a Bobcat with a massive stump grinder attachment that definitely makes my tractor's look rather puny. I didn't get to see it in action though because it developed a problem, most likely with the computer controlled traversing of the attachment.
I look forward to working with Matt on more projects in the future. It's great to meet someone from this site who is so close and has such a great operation going.