Talking Trees with Davey Tree

All-Female Climbing Crew - International Women's Day

March 03, 2022 The Davey Tree Expert Company Season 2 Episode 9
Talking Trees with Davey Tree
All-Female Climbing Crew - International Women's Day
Show Notes Transcript

Carolyn Sulzen, Morgan Nash and Laura Anderson from Davey's East Denver office talk about their all-female climbing crew and what it's like to climb trees for their career. 

In this episode we cover:

  • All-female climbing crew (0:45)
  • What a climbing crew does (1:15)
  • Response when a female team shows up (2:18)
  • Physical part of the job (3:02)
  • How Laura started her job (3:35)
  • Afraid of heights (4:36)
  • Importance on safety (5:11)
  • Proving themselves (6:15)
  • Hardest part of the job (8:12)
  • Unique experiences in trees (10:01)
  • Fun part of the job (11:04)
  • Advice for other women considering this career (13:08)

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Doug Oster: Welcome to the Davey Tree Expert Company's podcast, Talking Trees. I'm your host, Doug Oster. Each week, our expert arborists share advice on seasonal tree care, how to make your trees thrive, arborists' favorite trees, and much, much more. Tune in every Thursday to learn more because here at the Talking Trees podcast, we know trees are the answer. This week, we're celebrating the upcoming International Women's Day by talking to three women climbers that work in the East Denver office for the Davey Tree Expert Company. I'm joined by Carolyn Sulzen, Morgan Nash, and Laura Anderson. Welcome to the show, guys.

Laura Anderson: Hi, Doug. Thanks for having us.

Morgan Nash: Hi, thanks for having us.

Laura Anderson: Thank you.

Doug: All right. Laura, let's start with you. We talked a little bit before we came on here. Is it unusual for three women to be doing this job? Do you feel that, or am I wrong there?

Laura: I've only been working in this position for about two months now, so I'm fairly new, but you can tell from the reactions of our customers that it's something new that they haven't seen before. They love to make a comment, "Oh, do we have a woman's crew today?" [chuckles]

Doug: Let's start just by talking about climbing in general, tell me a little bit about the job. How about you, Morgan, tell me a little bit about what you guys do?

Morgan: Every day is like it's the same but it's not because we have different customers and different houses and different trees, so every day it's like a new problem we have to solve. The crews, we all go in together. We all huddle up in the very beginning, we all develop a plan, and then we try to execute that plan. It changes. Sometimes we discover something and we have to regroup, or it works flawlessly and we get up there and we climb the trees. We take them down or we make them look nice. We make them healthier. Then, at the end of the day, we regroup, talk about what worked, what didn't, talk with the customers, and then we make our way back to our office.

Doug: Carolyn, what is the response when a woman's team shows up? I know you don't think it's unusual that you're a climber, but sometimes customers might?

Carolyn Sulzen: Yes, occasionally people make comments. Usually, it's well-meaning comments like Laura was saying, "Oh, do we have a women's crew today?" No, I don't think it's strange at all. I've met a lot of women doing this kind of work. I previously worked on an all-women's crew doing conservation, so I don't find it strange at all, but I understand that it's typically a man's position, so it might be a little jarring to see a young girl come to your door telling you she's going to trim your trees.

Doug: Carolyn, talk a little bit about the physicality of the job. I don't care who you are, climbing trees is hard work.

Carolyn: Yes, it's a pretty athletic position. All of us are very in shape, I would say, or fairly in shape. It takes a lot of arm strength, upper body strength, and it's also mentally hard because you have to get over the fear of heights, and you have to trust your equipment and trust yourself to climb correctly, and to cut correctly.

Doug: Well, that's the part that scares me, the heights. Laura, since you're new to this, tell me a little bit about how you got into this and why the job's right for you.

Laura: Like Carolyn's background, I also have done conservation work. I just moved to Denver a couple of months ago, and so I was just looking for something that kept me physically active. I like a job that keeps you working physically. I was looking at that, and there was a lot of tree-trimming jobs in the area. I've never been one to really lean into urban forestry. I've worked in an organization with that being a section of it, but I was more on the water quality side, but I was willing to give it a try. I've got a little bit of a history of bouldering, and not so much top rope, which is rope climbing, but I thought that there would be some crossover with that, but I haven't found much of that actually being applicable to this. It's more using more of thrusting movements, you don't have a lot of hands with the climbing.

Doug: A question for all three have you, I've gone back to the heights, was that ever an issue for you? Because just from being down on the ground and watching a climber, it gives me the willies.

Carolyn: Yes, it definitely is something to overcome. I think more for some people than others. I know personally when I first started climbing, the first tree I climbed, I think I only went up about 10 or 15 feet and I looked down and I was like, "I don't know if this is the job for me, I don't know if I can do this." You get used to it. It's definitely something that you overcome the fear of the heights.

Doug: Morgan, safety is a huge issue and something very important for the Davey Tree Expert Company. Talk a little bit about the things you do before you even go up a tree to be sure that everybody's safe.

Morgan: Oh, well, as an office, in the trim part of the office, we do a peer check, we always check our gear. Every day we check our own gear, but every now and then, everyone in trim will all get together and we'll all check each other's gear for each other to make sure there's nothing to cut, or just banged up too much. It's always not only you're looking out for yourself, you're also looking out for other people. It's keeping an eye on making sure you notice like, "Oh, Carolyn, your second lifeline is not clipping all the way." She might not catch it, but you're expected to catch it for her. It's a team effort. It's something we all have to do for each other and ourselves all the time.

Doug: Carolyn, when you were saying a little bit about the reaction of some people when you show up, do you feel you have something to prove sometimes and show them, "Hey, I can do this job as well as anybody else?"

Carolyn: I think I used to feel that way. I don't personally feel that way anymore. I feel like I've proved it to myself, and I don't feel like I need to prove it to anybody else. I definitely felt like that when I first started, that I had to prove that I wasn't just like the office girl here for observation, [chuckles] that I was actually doing the job.

Doug: Isn't there more acceptance, certainly nowadays than it would have been 20 years ago, there's no reason you can't be climbing trees and trimming like anybody else? Again, do you feel, Laura, that you have something to prove as a woman climbing a tree as opposed to a man climbing a tree, or it doesn't matter? I mean, you climb a tree, and you know what you're doing, and that's cool.

Laura: Not as a woman, but as a new employee, I do feel like I have to show that I'm a fast learner and that I can carry my own weight. I've also had a history of mostly working with women, and standing out as one of the stronger, more assertive ones, and being able to take the backload of the work, and then having pride in that. It's definitely interesting being in more like a male setting. I'm very thankful to be working with two girls, especially how great they are. Just as a new employee, I want to do a job well, and so I'm always asking for feedback and that kind of stuff. The older employees do have a lot to offer, whether they're a male or not. It would be cool if we did have an older female on the team, but I do understand that there's a shift in the industry happening right now with more women coming on. We've had a customer say before, "I didn't know that Davey was hiring women." It's just like, "Well, they're hiring us now that we're applying."

Doug: What do you guys feel is the hardest part of the job? Start with you, Morgan.

Morgan: I would say the hardest part of the job, for me personally, I don't know how it is for everyone else, but for me, it's getting out of my own head because I know as long as I apply myself and put myself out there, I can do it. I think, for me, it's just, again, in my own head. Sometimes I'll see someone do something, and I'm like, "Well, I'm not at that skill level yet. I don't even know if I should even attempt to do that or if I just need to hold back and wait a little longer." Now I've been saying, "Oh, there's no time to start but now, just dive right in there and do it."

Doug: Carolyn, what's the hardest part for you?

Carolyn: I would say about the same. Just recognizing that if I try, I can probably get it done because for a while, I was the only girl in trim before Morgan joined us, and it was difficult for me to push myself I guess because there was a lot of guys who were a lot better than me, and I felt like I couldn't-- They didn't make me feel that way. That was my own personal thing. That's definitely the hardest thing for me too, is recognizing that if I just put myself out there to try, I can probably accomplish it.

Doug: Laura, what's the toughest thing for you?

Laura: Since I'm new, it's just not knowing as much as I want to know. I don't have too much of a history in trees, but I do have an ecology background. When customers ask questions, I wish that I had the answer for them, or if someone's going up in the tree and they need something sent up or they need a tie done, I don't know all the knots. I don't know all the information yet. It's just going over that hurdle of

being new.

Doug: Anybody ever find anything really weird and scary up in a tree like a bees nest or a snake or something like that? Do you encounter any stinging insects, that sort of thing? That's all I'm thinking about when I watch these climbers, is, "Oh, my luck, I'd see a bald-faced hornet's nest up there or something."

Carolyn: That's definitely happened.

Morgan: Yes.

Doug: Okay, so what happens then? Do you see it before you get to it, is that the idea, or do you stumble onto it?

Carolyn: A lot of the time you notice it before you get right up to it. Yes, if you're lucky. Especially in the summer when trees are all leafed out and you can't really see every part of the tree. I think more in felling we've come across bees or hornet's nests in trees that we're cutting down in dead trees and then have to step back and reevaluate what we're going to do because you can't cut a tree down if there's bees swarming you.

Doug: Good point. [laughs] What's the fun part? What's the good part about doing this job? Laura, you're brand new, so you start off. What is the good part about this?

Laura: The view from the top is still a novelty to me. I've only been working in this dormant season, so I haven't gotten a chance to see the trees leaf out or be completely enclosed in a tree yet. Everything's just pretty barky up there, but that's one of my favorite parts. I really do like working with the customers and seeing the difference between how they care for their trees. We'll have an old lady come out and say 50 years ago, she planted this tree as a child and how she has always been the one in charge of watering it and nurturing this tree and seeing how it's grown over the years and just like the pride she has in that and knowing that we've got that in our hands in order to help her take care of this and make sure that it looks as beautiful as she's put in the work for too.

Doug: What do you think, Morgan? What's the good part about this, the fun part?

Morgan: The fun part I think for me is like the sense of accomplishment and that I did a really good job. Working in the trees, it's really hard work and it's exhausting, and sometimes you ask yourself like, "Oh my gosh, why am I up here," and then you get down and the customer is super happy and they thank you and everyone on the team. Now everyone's saying good job to each other, everyone worked really hard. I really like the sense of accomplishment and pride.

Doug: Carolyn, what's a good part for you?

Carolyn: I like most of it. It's all fun for me. The climbing is fun, and like Laura said, the view from the top, especially here in Colorado where you can look out and see the mountains, that's a really special thing. Then, I also enjoy how hard it is physically on the ground. I don't mind dragging brush and raking a yard. That feels like an accomplishment to me. If I'm tired by the time I go home, that's a good day.

Doug: Carolyn, what would you say to other women who might be interested in getting into this field?

Carolyn: Just go for it. I think like Laura pointed out earlier, there's a culture shift in this industry, and there's a lot more women and a lot more young people applying to these jobs, so it's a bit more of an inclusive environment. I feel like the culture is shifting, so I would just go for it. It's definitely possible, somebody will give you a chance.

Doug: Morgan, same question for you. What do you say to women that might think about doing this job?

Morgan: I would definitely just say what Carolyn said, just jump into it, just do it. That's what I did. I went in with-- I really didn't know anything about the industry when I had my first internship out in California, and I learned a lot and I'm still learning, and everyone's there for me, so it's like just jump into it someone will help you, you'll figure it out, and the culture is changing. I think everyone's going to be on your side, and just do it.

Doug: Laura, you're brand new, you're learning, but someday, you'll be training too. Talk a little bit about bringing women into this business.

Laura: I guess the girls have said it. I don't really see jobs as they should be gendered anymore, and I don't know why necessarily women didn't want to do this. It's an adventure every day, and don't hold yourself back from that. I know that we're all a particular type of person that is drawn to this industry, but there's plenty more girls like that out there, and so I hope that no women ever feel like they can't be engaged in this industry just because it's had a history of being mostly physical labor, just male dominated. I think we have a lot to offer and bring new ideas to the table.

Doug: Well, guys, I'm going to leave it right there, that is great stuff from all three of you. Thanks very much for your time and your insight, that was great stuff. Appreciate your time.

Morgan: Thanks.

Laura: Thank you.

Carolyn: Thanks for having us, Doug.

Morgan: Yes.

Doug: It's all about spring next week, preparing for the season, using dormant oil, waiting for the right time to plant, and much more. Don't forget to tune in every Thursday to the Talking Trees podcast from the Davey Tree Expert Company. I'm your host, Doug Oster. I'd love it if you'd subscribe to the podcast. We're having fun, aren't we? As always, we'd like to remind you on the Talking Trees podcast, trees are the answer.

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