Davey Tree Flipbooks

107 106 Growth Rings of Excellence were Alvin Cannon, utility regional manager, Donna Triplett, manager of billing and payroll services, and Barry Weidner, manager of the Davey Nursery. By the end of 1993 Davey's R/C operations started to recover and posted a welcome 10 percent increase in revenues with the Western offices leading the way. Management happily declared 1993 a "normal" year in their annual letter to shareholders. at year Davey employees enjoyed showcasing their work at prominent properties out West. Davey crews cared for trees at the picturesque Fort Point National Historic Site beneath the Golden Gate Bridge on the San Francisco Bay. e Las Vegas R/C office cared for the landscaping at Caesars Palace and e Mirage hotel and casino. More careful management succession planning proceeded as then president, Doug Cowan, announced promotions of Karl Warnke and Dave Adante to executive vice presidents of the Davey Company in 1993. Adante, who started in 1979, had been serving as chief financial officer and secretary for the company, while Warnke, who started in 1980, was serving as vice president and general manager of utility services. By the middle of the decade the company management started to hit its stride. In 1996, Davey Tree employed approximately 5,000 people across North America. at year, the employees paid off the initial ESOP loan obtained to acquire the company from the Davey family. e Davey Company surged forward bolstered by record-setting revenues in R/C services as the U.S. economy started to recover. e Columbus R/C office became the first R/C office to ever hit $4 million in annual revenue. e office's annual sales grew by $1 million for two years in a row and reached the $4 million mark in 1993. "We had this slogan in the Columbus office then that we would 'Get four in 1994,'" Dan Joy, executive vice president and assistant to the president, recalled in a 2016 interview. Joy was district manager in Columbus during this period. "We did it, and then we reached $5 million in 1995, $6 million in 1996, $7 million in 1997, and $8 million in 1998. So we grew by $1 million every year for several years in a row." Dan Joy, whose father Jack had played such an instrumental role in the 1979 employee acquisition, had started working for Davey in 1976 as a groundperson in utility services with no expectations of a career. He would later work his way up the leadership structure to become executive vice president and general manager, Commercial Services. Resurrecting the Fourth Service Line e Davey Resource Group (DRG) officially became recognized as Davey's fourth service line in 1995, following the introduction of Commercial services earlier that year. e resource group was re-introduced in 1992, when Davey acquired Golden Coast Environmental Services of Irvine, California. e resource group's predecessor, Davey Environmental Services, had been shut down by management in 1984 after it sustained substantial losses. During 1993 and 1994 the resource group built a foundation to offer technical consulting services to the utility, commercial, and governmental markets. "e Davey Resource Group came of age in 1995 and achieved status as our fourth operating group, along with Utility services, R/C services and Commercial services," Davey's 1995 annual report states. "Owing to the nature of consulting services, revenues are gained on a project-by-project basis and are not as predictable, nor as recurring, as our core services. We expect, therefore, that annual revenues will fluctuate, depending upon the number of large contracts that we acquire in a particular year, but that over the long-term, consulting revenues will continue to increase as our selling and production capacities grow." Management combined the acquired Golden Coast operations with Davey's Human and Technical Resources staff to create the resource group. As part of the Golden Coast acquisition and the new service line's debut, the company renamed what had been known as the Human and Technical Resources Center in Kent to the Davey Institute. Now, Davey Resource Group functioned as an extension of sorts of the Davey Institute. Announcing the news to employees, Roger Funk, then vice president of human and technical resources, wrote in e Davey Bulletin that the name change reflected the Institute's present-day functions and scope of services. "e market for technical services is growing throughout the United States and Canada, creating an opportu- nity for Davey to capitalize on our technical expertise and service network," Funk wrote. Funk served as the first general manager of Davey Resource Group. He recalled in a 2016 interview that some in operations management were opposed to the idea of establishing the resource group, but the company's executive management supported its development. "It was a battle for DRG in the first few years," Funk said. "But we were successful. And that's all the proof you need." Doug Cowan, then CEO, said Funk gave Davey a huge advantage over other green industry firms in research and development thanks to his raw intelligence. "He was a key ingredient in not only the success of Davey Resource Group but the Davey Company as a whole," Cowan said. "Roger is one of the brightest people I've known. He was the guy that could absolutely get DRG off the ground." e new DRG conducted numerous urban forest inventories in 1994, but the group would get its first big chance to prove itself in 1995. One of the earliest projects to establish Davey Resource Group as a profitable and industry-leading service line for Davey involved one of California's largest utility companies. Starting in 1995, PG&E, Davey's single-largest utility client, contracted with Davey Resource Group to conduct a comprehensive vegetation management assessment along all its overhead lines spanning the Golden State. e inventory, which included trees and electrical equipment, followed two recently approved public resource codes stipulating strict line clearance aimed at improving fire protection. As a result, teams of Davey employees struck out to hike 97,000 miles of service lines stretching from Redding, California, to Bakersfield, California. A total 125 Davey employees spent long days inspecting the lines and gathering data as they climbed mountains, descended into steep valleys, and crossed crystal-clear streams in remote locations. Brent Repenning, executive vice president of U.S. Utility and Davey Resource Group, started with Davey as a data collector in 1994 and worked as a crew member on the project. Repenning recalled in a 2017 interview the groundbreaking nature of the project, as it established Davey's ability to operate in the utility forestry market. "e client had goals and objectives, but due to the pioneering nature of the work there were no defined guidelines," Repenning said. "e first few months became a process of discovery. And that's where Davey shined as a true solutions provider. We wrote the procedures manual for the project for the client, which was very accommo- dating, and essentially defined how the work would be done moving forward." Crews input data on handheld computers. Employees uploaded the information once a week using telephone modems, as there was no broadband internet yet. Even cell phones were sparse and limited to just crew leaders, who slung the bulky bag phones over their shoulders despite having little cellular reception in the remote Chapter 6 Ken Joehlin worked in Davey's environmental services, predecessor to Davey Resource Group, before departing Davey briefly. He returned in 1996. Ward Peterson presents a lecture on pollinators at the Davey research farm in 2016. Peterson was an early leader in helping develop Davey Resource Group. Roger Funk speaks to a group of Davey employees in 2007. Funk served as the first general manager of the Davey Resource Group and helped revive the service line after its predecessor, Environmental Services, had been shut down. A Davey employee conducts an inventory of street trees, utility vegetation, utility poles and related utility hardware. e project, coordinated by Davey Resource Group, helped the city of Hudson, Ohio, manage its urban forest. Such work was an example of the early service focus of DRG.

• Cover