Davey Tree Flipbooks

167 166 Growth Rings Another strategic plan initiative that aspires to uphold Davey's core company values is Davey Voice. Launched with Vision 2030, Davey Voice is a web, phone and mobile resource created to encourage employees to provide feedback, raise concerns and seek support on workplace issues. is new avenue gave employees the ability to report any activity they believe may be inconsistent with Davey's ethics, policies or values. e company then, to the extent possible, investigates all reports lodged through Davey Voice. Erika Schoenberger, vice president, general counsel and assistant secretary, said that while Davey Voice helps the company's employees live up to all its core values, in particular it reflects integrity as a value at Davey. "As an employee-owned company, we have mutual accountability to each other," Schoenberger said. "is reflects on us in the types of teams we are building, our behaviors in the community and with each other. As a company we believe in integ- rity, that speaking up and holding each other accountable is what we want to live out because we'll be better for it." Four Decades of Employee Ownership While the company prepared to transition its strategic plans, the employees celebrated 40 years of employee ownership in 2019. e anniversary marked the four-decade milestone since the employees purchased the company from the Davey family in 1979. To commemorate the occasion, the company enjoyed modest publicity in local, national and trade publications laud- ing Davey for its employee ownership longevity. e National Center for Employee Ownership ranked Davey as the ninth largest employee-owned firm in the U.S. on its 2019 Employee Ownership 100 list. At year's end, Davey's stock was valued at $24.20 per share – an increase of 14.7 percent over the 2018 year-end valuation. Covey said the fortieth anniversary offered an opportunity for employees and the company to reaffirm employee ownership as a rallying point for company culture. "We have an established culture around employee ownership that resonates deep into the company," Covey said. "And it provides motivation for a good number of our employees because people are invested. at bit of incentive, knowing that we work for ourselves, helps. It allows us to not have some of the outside influencers that companies that have private equity or outside investors have, because their motiva- tions are often quite different from what ours can be." e company held a number of gatherings throughout 2019 celebrating employee ownership. ese events culminated in Employee Ownership Month in October, when during an employee gathering at the corporate office, plans were announced for new facilities construction in the Kent, Ohio, area. First, Davey Chairman, President and CEO Pat Covey announced plans to start construction on a 38,000-square-foot addition that would be connected to the exist- ing main corporate office building. Effectively known as the third wing, the new space would accommodate projected growth over the next 10 years and move some employees back to the corporate campus from remote locations. When first built in 1984, the corporate building was designed to accommodate construction of this future addition via a connection to the building's atrium space and two existing wings. e third wing was scheduled to open in 2023. Second, Covey announced detailed plans for the Davey SEED (Science, Employee Education and Development) Campus that included a master plan for the 174-acre site. e SmithGroup integrated design firm guided development of this plan in collaboration with TC Architects, the firm that designed the Davey corporate office. e master plan for the Davey SEED Campus property announced in 2019 shows detailed plans for the campus, including a sophisticated education and training facility. e ird Wing addition to the corporate office added 38,000 square feet of new space to the existing two wings, which originally opened in 1985. Chapter 11

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