Davey Tree Flipbooks

155 154 Growth Rings operations with his brother Rod since the acquisition of their firm, High Tree, in 1986. Canadian operations had two top managers in the succession pipeline at the time. Mike Nash, vice president and general manager of Canadian residential operations, and Blair Veitch, vice president and general manager of Canadian utility operations, were promoted to important roles as part of an organizational reporting change, which set the stage for a transition to maximize the company's ability to sell service and support the two business segments. 2015 While Canadian operations had a record-setting year in 2014, in 2015, a stark devaluation of the Canadian dollar delivered a major blow to the financial results. Nevertheless, Davey's operations in utility and residential services performed well. e two largest business segments of its U.S. operations posted record revenues and steady earnings. at year also brought another significant departure when Rick Ramsey retired as corporate vice president of Canadian operations. During Ramsey's 43-year career, he amassed considerable experience in all facets of Davey operations including residential services, the Davey Tree Surgery Company, commercial and Canadian operations. A decade and a half into the new millennium, the company continued preparations for the end of an executive leadership era. Davey approached the end of a 36-year span under the familiar leadership of Jack Joy, Doug Cowan and Karl Warnke, who together represented a leadership group that had worked with each other almost since the employee acquisition of 1979. Following Joy's death, Cowan's departure from the board and Warnke's forthcoming retirement as CEO, Davey management made final promotions and organizational changes over the course of the next three years to address this leadership transition. Critical management elevations, promotions and retirements occurring at this time helped prepare for the next iteration of company leadership (see Appendix B coordinator." Commonly referred to as "CECs," the title change brought with it a more standardized expectation of roles and responsibilities to the employees who managed the daily operations of a local residential office – with tasks ranging from taking client calls to scheduling crews and managing payroll. e changes in title and responsibility first started in 2003, when the service line introduced regular training for its top office coordinators, as they were called then. At that time, R/C services had fewer than 60 office coordinators, and that made it easy to bring as many as half to the corporate office once a year for training on phone and communication skills, customer service techniques and other advanced training related to the current business climate. Residential services management tapped Patti Shanley, then an administrative assistant in R/C operations, to organize the coordinator training. She had started in 1979 as a file clerk in the corporate office but had spent time working as a local office coordinator during her career and was later honored as a Best of Davey Leadership Award recipient. "We were more than a secretary. We were more than a clerk," Shanley said in a 2019 interview. "We were impactful of that client on the other end of the line. e training empowered the coordinators to have more authority. Before, we would hear from coordinators that they felt like they were on an island." In 2006, the service line introduced the Office Coordinator Council, which gathered the top coordinators from the six residential regions for several meetings over the course of a year. e group, which Shanley was chosen to lead, was tasked with developing what would become a nearly 800-page manual to serve as a guid- ing document and reference point for the coordinator role. e council introduced the manual at the 2007 National Managers' Meeting. Starting in 2011, the manual received weekly updates to ensure it remained a living document to steer the opera- tions of the office coordinator. "We implemented and managed this as a total team," Shanley said. "Everyone knew this was an important job we were assigned, and everyone wanted to do their best." e position has only continued to expand as it has amassed more responsibilities in tandem with the company's growth, from fewer than 60 coordinators in 2003 to 170 across more than 100 local offices in 2017. e title change to client experience coordinator in 2014 followed the introduction of DaveyCare in 2011 and further emphasized the company's renewed focus on providing high-quality client service. e year 2014 also brought with it welcome recognition from England for its native son, John Davey, 141 years after he migrated to the U.S. e Paignton Zoo in South Devon, England, planted a Kentucky coffee tree in his honor. John Davey was born not far from South Devon and had studied agriculture and horticulture there before emigrating to the U.S. in 1873. e planting also represented the start of a new project to evaluate the zoo's trees using the i-Tree® software suite. From a financial standpoint, 2014 almost mirrored 2013. Both years experienced wet, difficult weather and slow earnings at the start. Yet in the U.S. the two largest service lines, utility and residential, experienced revenue increases each year, contrib- uting to overall revenue growth for the company. And each year, employee ownership continued to grow with increased participation in both the Employee Stock Purchase Plan and the 401KSOP. Canada witnessed the retirement of long-time utility operations leader Doug Soderstrom in 2014. Soderstrom had managed Davey Canada's western utility Chapter 10 e trees at Bank of America Stadium were cared for by Davey's Charlote R/C office in 2016. An Arborguard Tree Specialists employee manages a large tree removal. Arborguard joined Davey Tree in 2017.

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