The Davey Tree Expert Company provides residential and commercial tree service and landscape service throughout North America. Read our Flipbooks for helpful tips and information on proper tree and lawn care.
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105 104 Growth Rings crew members, and it also started offering Groundskeeper Care services to help offset falling sales in residential services. e recession wasn't the only hurdle the company faced entering the 1990s. Coming into the decade, Davey leadership saw an environmental revolution on the horizon. "We believe we have a responsibility and obligation to provide leadership in our industry on environmental issues that are within our ability to affect, and we intend to provide that leadership," executive management stated in the 1990 annual report. "We know that we cannot single-handedly alter the environmental ills that confront our world, but we are a respected voice and owe it to ourselves and our children to actively try to make a difference. Environmentalism and naturalism are not trends at Davey, but doctrines John Davey lived by and upon which he founded his company." Such environmental efforts manifested themselves through fine tuning of Davey's Plant Health Care program and the company's support of endeavors such as the National Register of Big Trees, the American Forestry Association's Global ReLeaf campaign, and the Garden Writers Association. Such partnerships helped Davey and other environmentally centered organizations work to preserve the natural landscape, but they also helped elevate the Davey brand by associating its expertise with nation- ally recognized entities. Davey's partnership with the American Forestry Association's (AFA) National Register of Big Trees kicked off with the planting of a 15-foot Crimson King maple tree on the grounds of the Smithsonian Institution. e ceremony was attended by Ohio Senator John Glenn, Ohio Representative Dennis Eckart, Doug Cowan, Jack Joy, and representatives from the AFA and the Smithsonian. is partnership would endure for many years and evolve to include a calendar, sponsored and published by Davey annually, highlighting a champion tree from the national register each month to celebrate the majesty of these giants of the arboreal landscape. Reorganization and Recovery During this period, in 1992, company management reorganized all of Davey's U.S. R/C operations into one national organization. e national organization was divided into two primary groups, the eastern and western divisions, which were then split further by geographic region. is was yet another step in the direction of organizing Davey around its clients, a move that first started in 1984 when Lawnscape and Tree Care services were organized under a single district manager to create the Residential/ Commercial service line. is led to some shuffling within R/C leadership as part of the ongoing succession planning. Jim Stief, who had been working with Rick Ramsey out West, came back east to work in the corporate office as operations manager, R/C services, overseeing Midwestern territories. is move broadened Stief 's leadership role with the east and west residential operations realigned as one group. Stief 's shift coincided with Steve Marshall, then working as an area manager for residential services in the corporate office, moving out west to assist in transitioning the western residential offices into the more centralized U.S. R/C operations. For Marshall, his transition to the surgery company brought exposure to the company's utility operations, which would prove useful sooner than anticipated. In 1997, Marshall returned to Kent and joined Eastern Utility services. Utility services revenues increased dramatically as R/C services struggled with the recession. Events like Hurricane Andrew, which struck Florida in August 1992, accounted for some of the increased revenue as Davey assisted in the recovery and cleanup. Andrew, a Category 5 hurricane, caused an estimated $26 billion in damage in the U.S. More than 300 Davey employees worked 16-hour days, seven days a week for several weeks helping to restore power in the aftermath. During this up-and-down period, company shareholders voted to adopt uniform restrictions on the transfer of Davey stock to ensure that the Davey Company remained employee owned. e action restricted shareholders from passing down company stock further than one generation in their family. Retirees could own stock, and shareholders could bequeath stock to their direct descendants. But if the children of shareholders who received stock wanted to sell their shares, their only option was now to sell it to the company. e move ensured the integrity of Davey's employee- ownership model. "We didn't want outsiders owning our stock," retired Davey chairman Doug Cowan recalled. e 1992 National Managers' Meeting in Morgantown, West Virginia was one of Davey's many periodic gatherings of the company's top management to review strategic goals. Held at the Lakeview Conference Center on the shores of the scenic Cheat Lake, the meeting represented one of the largest gatherings of company management for a business meeting of this type in nearly 70 years – dating back to the annual sales conferences Martin L. Davey, Sr., held in the 1920s. Management looked to recognize employees who played a role in the company's success, so the John Davey Award of Excellence was introduced at the meeting. e award was intended to recognize managers for perpetuating the Davey spirit as exemplified by the company's founder. "Father John," as he was so commonly called, drew upon an unyielding passion for the care of trees to build the Davey company during his time as president from 1880 until his death in 1923. To be a recipient you had to have a love for trees like the award's namesake, whose favorite, the copper beech tree (Fagus sylvatica f. purpurea), is a majestic specimen. With time and good health, a copper beech can grow over 130 feet tall. Its smooth, gray bark is accompanied by oval-shaped leaves that range from copper to a deep-purple color in the fall. e John Davey Award would come to represent the highest award that the company could bestow upon an employee. e inaugural recipients of the John Davey Award Chapter 6 Dan Joy, right, participates in a tree planting on the Ohio Statehouse grounds in Columbus as part of a rededication ceremony in 2001. Joy broke revenue records during his time as district manager of the Columbus office in the late 1990s. e event rededicated a plaque honoring Martin L. Davey, Sr., in whose name Davey employees donated two American elms to the statehouse grounds in 1939. Sioeli Feaomoeata, of Davey's San Francisco office, fertilizes a tree for a residential client in 1998. Mike McLaughlin of Davey's Louisville residential office removes a dead tree for a client in 1999.