Davey Tree Flipbooks

29 January/February 2020 | THE DAVEY BULLETIN Bruce Kaplan retired Nov. 3, 2019, following four years of service. Kaplan was an irrigation technician, Pine Lake and Lake Fairways territory in Fort Myers, Florida. RETIREMENTS Eugene W. Haupt, retiree, passed away Dec. 25, 2019. Haupt retired in 1991 as president of the Davey Tree Surgery Company. Accumulating 52 years of service, Haupt could count himself among Davey Tree's longest-serving employees. Haupt started at Davey in 1939. He attended training in Kent before joining a utility crew in Ohio but would work in Illinois, New York and Georgia before entering the army in 1942. He served two years in the European theater during WWII. His service included parachuting into occupied France as part of the D-Day invasion on June 6, 1944. Haupt rose through the ranks to receive a battlefield commission as second lieutenant with the 377th Field Artillery battalion and earned three Bronze Stars for his acts of heroism in combat, in addition to a Purple Heart. He returned to Davey in March 1946 upon his discharge from service. Upon his return to Davey, Haupt worked as a foreman in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida until 1949, when he was made junior sales representative in Cleveland. That same year, he moved to Detroit to open Davey's first residential tree care operation there. In 1960, Haupt moved to the corporate office to manage the tree moving and landscaping department. There he introduced many new ventures, in- cluding the establishment of the Davey Nursery in Wooster, Ohio, in 1965 and the purchase of hydraulic tree moving cranes. In that role Haupt managed large projects for several significant clients, including Arlington National Cemetery, John Deere, General Motors and the Ford Motor Company. Haupt took on his most meaningful role at Davey in 1969 when he was named general manager of the Davey Tree Surgery Company after the Davey Company purchased the California operations from Keith Davey, grandson of John Davey. Haupt would successfully lead the West Coast operations until his retirement in 1991 and during that time earned several more promotions, including to executive vice president and general manager in 1984 and to president of the surgery company in 1985. He had been elected to the Davey Company's board of directors in 1979 and played a key role in 1986 in the acquisition of High Tree Services, a utility line clearance contractor in western Canada. Haupt was among the original 114 shareholders in the employee acquisition in 1979. Haupt credited support from Davey employees throughout his career as a big reason for his successes during a 2016 interview. "I learned a lot, I did a good job with anything I was given to do, and I made some friends who helped me and believed in me," Haupt said. RETIRED SURGERY COMPANY PRESIDENT SERVED 52 YEARS Gene Haupt in 2007. MEMORIAL Epalahame Palu retired Nov. 24, 2019, following 17 years of service. Palu was general foreman, PG&E Peninsula account. Merlin Pritt retired Dec. 1, 2019, following eight years of service. Pritt was a utility vegetation management specialist, Davey Resource Group.

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