Davey Tree Flipbooks

11 10 Growth Rings Chapter 1 reducing employees' out-of-pocket insurance costs, and put a renewed emphasis on safety. He also started a group retirement plan for employees. Moreover, he finished some goals set by his father but left incomplete upon his death. In 1954 the company opened the Davey Technical Service Center, which housed the office, laboratory, and library for the technical staff under one roof with class- room space for D.I.T.S. and other employee training. As president, Brub saw to the reopening and revamping of the D.I.T.S., which had been suspended temporarily. He had attended the industry's premier training program himself and found D.I.T.S. crucial to the company. "I believed it served a purpose," he said in 1996. "We had our men trained better than they had been before. And it brought the quality of service up. We were the originals, and we should be the leaders and set the standard for the industry." It was a prosperous period for the Davey Company. Brub pushed for the expansion of sales territories following the war, particularly in the South – another of his father's wishes. For each year of the first 10 years of his leadership, the company posted annual revenue increases of nearly half a million dollars. e development of new services and the incorporation of new equipment, includ- ing the chainsaw, brush chipper, and bucket truck, would help the company reach a record $11 million in sales by 1959 – a double-digit revenue milestone to mark the e Davey Technical Service Center opened in 1954 at 905 Bryce Road in Kent. It housed, for the first time, the laboratory and library for the technical staff all under one roof. Davey arborists developed arboriculture methods and mechanizations in the building that would have lasting effects on the green industry. e building also had dedicated classroom space for D.I.T.S. Inset: A Davey lab technician at work in the technical service center. In 2016, the Kent City Council declared the building a locally historic property for its significance to Davey and the green industry. is building at 117 S. Water St. in downtown Kent, Ohio, had served as the home address for the corporate headquarters for decades dating back to the early 1900s. A small sign on the bottom of the door at right simply reads "Davey Tree." In the 1960s and 1970s Davey corporate functions also occupied office space on the second and third floors of these buildings at the corner of Water and Main streets in downtown Kent. ese spaces were linked by corridors with the original offices at 117 S. Water St. e May 1946 Davey Bulletin recorded, for posterity's sake, the company board of directors' vote naming the younger Davey president with little exaggeration. "Upon the shoulders of a young man just turned 28, has been placed the responsibility of directing the affairs of our company," the Bulletin reported. To the extent possible, Martin L. Davey, Jr., had been groomed for the position. He'd studied botany and business at Yale before his military service. During summers in college, he'd spent time working in the field to get an understanding of Davey Tree's operations from the ground. Martin L. Davey, Sr., perhaps sensing his own mortality, wrote a five-page letter to his son in December 1945 outlining his philos- ophies on business and life. And he had also spent nights, for months leading up to his death, advising his son on the personalities and work ethics of top managers in the company. "Every night during the workweek, he had me down to his house for two or three hours," M.L. Davey, Jr., recalled. "He went over every one of [his key supervisors]. It helped me a lot." e Davey Company had been thriving for decades. When the young president took over in 1946, he was tasked with keeping the momentum going, keeping the employees loyal and dedicated, and maintaining Davey Tree's strong reputation. Fortunately, this proved less of a challenge for the young heir than one might expect. For within the Davey leadership ranks stood a host of men who'd cut their teeth in the tree care business for many years. ese were men like Paul G. Hershey, vice president of field operations; Francis F. "Red" Lofgren, vice president of sales; Homer L. Jacobs, manager of technical services; Orrin B. Crosser, overseeing company finances; Vernon axton, equipment manager; M.W. "Biff" Staples, tree moving field supervisor; and J.D. Riddle, director of Canadian operations. Some of these men, like Staples, had been with Davey Tree long enough to have heard the company motto, "Do it right or not at all," spoken by John Davey himself. Martin L. Davey, Jr., was affectionately known as "Brub." When his sister was a little girl, in trying to pronounce "brother," she called him "brubbo," and the nickname perpetuated into adulthood. Brub improved employee benefits, such as

• Cover