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15 July/August 2023 | THE DAVEY BULLETIN During the trip, skills trainers worked on refining elements of Davey's climbing curriculum to elaborate on various aspects of tree work. Members of Davey's arborist skills trainers team traveled to a specialized, indoor climbing training facility in Wisconsin to learn about developing tree climbing training programs for arborists using a unique climbing gym. The group training trip was an important step in the process of creating a climbing training curriculum for use in the indoor climbing gym that is planned for the Davey SEED (Science, Employee Education and Development) Campus, currently under construction across from the corporate office in Kent, Ohio. Tim Bushnell, arborist skills specialist, said the skills trainers visited the ENSA work-at-height training and safety facility in Mukwonago, Wisconsin, to experience firsthand the type of metal climbing structure that will be installed at the SEED Campus, so that Davey's skills trainers can further develop their plan for teaching tree-climbing techniques to Davey employees when the new facility opens in Kent in early 2025. "ENSA is a world-class facility, one of the best in the nation with metal structures and as an active training site for work-at-height disciplines," Bushnell said. "We started this process two years ago to determine that we can in fact train tree climbers on metal structures. Not only can we do it, TRAINING TRIP SETS STAGE FOR CLIMBING CENTER CURRICULUM but as we went through the process we discovered there are quite a few advantages to climbing training on metal structure compared with trees." The "modtruss" climbing structure that will be erected at the SEED Campus climbing center was designed by experts at ENSA. It will be installed with assistance from Davey's skills trainers. The structure will occupy about half of the space of the climbing center. How the remaining space will be used will be determined once the climbing center is opened and its curriculum grows and evolves. Bushnell said the climbing center will not eliminate the need or desire to use real trees to train Davey employees in safe and efficient climbing methods. "Davey has hundreds of wonderful trees to climb at the SEED Campus that we are planning on using, so as we finalize our curriculum for climbing classes we will definitely get our climbers touching trees and starting to appreciate trees and tree climbing," Bushnell said. "We are not ignoring the fact that we definitely want to engage our trainees and learners on wood, but we can begin the process of them becoming familiar and efficient with the fundamentals on metal before we do that." Above: Davey's arborist skills trainers team visited the ENSA indoor climbing work-at-height training and safety facility in Mukwonago, Wisconsin. Davey's climbing center planned for the new SEED Campus, although smaller, will feature similar metal climbing structures used for training. Davey's climbing center will feature a structure consisting of eight connected metal columns bolted to the ceiling and floor for structural stability. The structure is designed so that Davey will be able to modify and adjust the climbing features over time. Inset: This architectural artists' rendering shows the interior of the climbing center at the Davey SEED Campus as it would look prior to installation of the "modtruss" metal tree climbing training structure.