Davey Tree Flipbooks

24 THE DAVEY BULLETIN | May/June 2024 The Bulletin asked Brent Repenning, executive vice president, U.S. Utility and Davey Resource Group (DRG), and William Gray, supervisor, Upper Atlantic operations, Eastern Utility services, to share what employee ownership has meant to them over their Davey careers. Repenning started at Davey in 1994 as an intern with DRG when he was studying forestry at The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. "Finding Davey was kind of a fluke," Repenning said. "I had a professor who taught forest mensuration, the science of measurement applied to forest products, who had a former graduate student who had reached out to him saying they needed summer interns." Repenning had primarily been working road construction jobs during the summers to save money for school and knew it was important to gain professional experience. "I called and ended up coming up here for an interview and got hired. I spent the summer working on urban forestry projects in Michigan and Colorado. In school, I had been learning about growing trees for timber management EMPLOYEE OWNERSHIP UNIFIES DAVEY OPERATIONS and in forests for recreation, so urban forestry was new to me," Repenning said. Upon graduating, Repenning briefly worked in the timber industry. "I had such a great experience as an intern at Davey, though, that I decided to come back. I really liked the people, and it was more of a professional atmosphere. I knew it was going to be a good fit," Repenning added. The first big project Repenning worked on was in 1995 for DRG, which involved conducting a comprehensive vegetation assessment along all PG&E overhead lines in California. "There were some Davey Tree Surgery Company employees involved in the project that had moved over to DRG; they talked about employee ownership all the time. I also got to spend time with the late Howard Bowles, due to our mutual client, who always made it a point of talking about it and asking me, 'Did you see the share price,' or 'Are you enrolled in the Stock Purchase Plan yet?'. The excitement around it made me take notice, because when the share price would come out, it filtered quickly through the grapevine. This was before social media and cell phones, but it had a way of getting out the day of it being announced," Repenning said. When he first started buying shares, Repenning said he didn't fully understand what that signified. As he got more into the supervision and management side of Davey, he started thinking about that part a lot more. He thought about how the daily decisions they were making, including keeping people working safely, were contributing towards the increase in share price. Repenning will celebrate 30 years of service at Davey this year. These days, he thinks LEADERSHIP Brent Repenning executive vice president, U.S. Utility and Davey Resource Group Repenning joined Davey in 1994 as an intern with Davey Resource Group (DRG) and held positions of increasing responsibility until becoming vice president of Eastern operations, DRG in 2009. In 2010 he was named vice president and general manager of DRG. In 2016, Repenning expanded his role to include Eastern Utility services and was promoted to senior vice president of DRG and Eastern Utility operations, and in 2017, was promoted to executive vice president, U.S. Utility and DRG. He received a Davey Outstanding Manager award in 2007. Repenning was elected a corporate officer of Davey in 2013, and is a member of the Strategic Leadership Team. Scan the QR code to watch a video featuring Brent Repenning speak about the importance of stewardship and answering the question, "Why and when did you decide to become an employee owner?"

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