Jason Parker from Davey's North Philadelphia office talks about the volunteer work he and other arborists across the country do for Saluting Branches, a non-profit organization dedicated to recognizing and honoring our veterans by doing tree work on veteran cemeteries.
In this episode we cover:
To find your local Davey office, check out our find a local office page to search by zip code.
To learn more about Saluting Branches, visit its website, www.salutingbranches.org, or listen to our past Talking Trees episode Volunteer Tree Work at Veteran Cemeteries - Saluting Branches.
Connect with Davey Tree on social media:
Twitter: @DaveyTree
Facebook: @DaveyTree
Instagram: @daveytree
YouTube: The Davey Tree Expert Company
LinkedIn: The Davey Tree Expert Company
Connect with Doug Oster at www.dougoster.com.
Have topics you'd like us to cover on the podcast? Email us at podcasts@davey.com. We want to hear from you!
Jason Parker from Davey's North Philadelphia office talks about the volunteer work he and other arborists across the country do for Saluting Branches, a non-profit organization dedicated to recognizing and honoring our veterans by doing tree work on veteran cemeteries.
In this episode we cover:
To find your local Davey office, check out our find a local office page to search by zip code.
To learn more about Saluting Branches, visit its website, www.salutingbranches.org, or listen to our past Talking Trees episode Volunteer Tree Work at Veteran Cemeteries - Saluting Branches.
Connect with Davey Tree on social media:
Twitter: @DaveyTree
Facebook: @DaveyTree
Instagram: @daveytree
YouTube: The Davey Tree Expert Company
LinkedIn: The Davey Tree Expert Company
Connect with Doug Oster at www.dougoster.com.
Have topics you'd like us to cover on the podcast? Email us at podcasts@davey.com. We want to hear from you!
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. I'm joined this week by Jason Parker. He's a district manager for the Davey Tree Expert Company in Horsham, PA. That's close to Philadelphia, right, Jason?
Jason Parker: That's correct, just outside of Philadelphia.
Doug: Today we're talking about something called Saluting Branches. Tell me a little bit about what that is and how you're involved in it.
Jason: Saluting Branches is a day of service for primarily veteran cemeteries where tree companies around the country come in and offer a day of free tree care to help maintain the cemeteries around the US.
Doug: What is your role in that? You're just one of the volunteers. Have you worked with this before?
Jason: Yes, so in the past we've been just on the volunteer side of things. This year we had a little bit of a unique scenario where I was contacted by one of the directors and they needed someone to actually run the program at a small cemetery down in Fishtown. My senior crew leader actually took the ball and ran with it there and ended up being the site supervisor for us and basically managed the whole project.
Doug: What work gets done there? Could it be anything? Do you go in first as an arborist and see this-- or they're telling you what needs to be done or a little bit of both?
Jason: Definitely a little bit of both. John went in as a 30-plus-year arborist, very familiar with what to be looking for. Obviously, safety being our number one concern and took the director's questions, concerns, comments and worked the two pieces together and came up with a plan.
Doug: Tell me a little bit of what it feels like to work on such a project because that's pretty amazing, I think.
Jason: It definitely is. It certainly makes you feel good about being able to give back a little bit. Its fair share of challenges. You're coordinating multiple tree companies who most likely have not worked together in the past. There's a fair amount of coordination that needs to happen there. You're also working in a cemetery. You've got a lot of challenges, a lot of obstacles. For us specifically on this project, we were in Fishtown, which is close to Philadelphia. It's in Philadelphia, it's closer to center city.
As a result, there were a lot of challenges just getting equipment into the property, small property, lots of on-street parking, some real challenges there. Then again, unique with this property, it's a historic cemetery dating back to the 1700s. Some pretty high-value targets that we wanted to make sure we protected as well as we possibly could while being respectful of everything else.
Doug: Yes, that's pretty amazing. Especially, such a historic property. Talk about a little bit of the nuts and bolts of working in a small, very old cemetery. Talk about getting those big trucks in there first.
Jason: That was probably the biggest challenge. You got to go remember when this cemetery was built, the roads that were built through it for access were really just for horse and carriage. They were not intended for large aerial units or any equipment of the type. Getting in, getting situated, having the right equipment to be able to work around that was pretty critical.
John did a lot of that upfront when he contacted the other tree companies to volunteer, saw what equipment they could provide. We provided what equipment we could that we knew would be appropriate for the site. This is where that pre-planning definitely-- it took some time to make sure that we were going to get down there and be successful.
Doug: Talk a little bit about your history. What have you done in the past with Saluting Branches?
Jason: Personally, I've sent crews into New Jersey and the upstate PA. We try to pick a site that's close because while it is a day of service, we're still paying the crews and everything like that. We want to be efficient. We want to be able to get as much work done for the cemeteries as we can. If I've got five hours of drive time, that doesn't allow me to be very efficient. We try to pick places that are close. Honestly, the closest ones so far had been over an hour and a half probably away.
They weren't exactly in our backyard. This one's still a little bit of a hike only because of traffic getting into Philadelphia, but was only maybe 40 minutes from our office. A little bit easier to get down there, get down there early, get set up, and make the most out of our time.
Doug: Why do you think it's so important to have a service day like this? Interesting that it spans so many other tree companies too. That's an interesting part of this. I could see where a whole Davey crew could do it and they're used to working together and everything, but bringing in the other guys too, why do you think it's important?
Jason: I think it's important for a lot of reasons. One of the biggest things, not only again, was this cemetery specifically a veteran's cemetery, but it was a historic cemetery. Largely, their budget really doesn't exist. It's pretty small. Anything that they can have done by volunteers is a huge weight off their shoulders. The uniqueness of the project and being able to have people that are interested in preserving trees in historic places like this, I don't think spans just one company. I think there's a lot of people out there with the same values. It's really neat to be able to see everybody working together for the same goal, for a good cause and just there to do the work.
Doug: Is that workout okay with, like I said, other teams, does everybody have their own way to do things or is there industry standards that you're using? How does that part work?
Jason: One of the nice things about running the program down at Palmer Cemetery is, we were able to pick and choose who we wanted to extend the invitation to. We picked people that we knew were going to fit within our standards. There's certainly a lot of variability out there amongst companies. We felt like we picked some pretty good partners. There were a couple of volunteer solo guys that ended up showing up that really had the same standards in mind. We did a nice safety briefing in the morning. I think that really helped everybody get on the same page, realizing that we all had the same standards.
Doug: Talk a little bit about the safety meeting and looking at the property first from a vantage point of safety. Someone goes on site and looks at everything and comes up with a plan or how does that all work?
Jason: Yes, so John, since he'd been down to the site probably a half a dozen times before the actual day of service, really had a pretty good plan for what was going to happen. He'd been in contact with the other companies. We knew what equipment was coming down, how many people were coming down, and how to sort of get things set up from the beginning. We did have a pretty good plan going into it. Once we got there, of course, plans changed.
We had a few less people from one company. We had a couple of volunteers from these other companies. We had to rehash it and figure out exactly where we were going to fill the gaps and then figure out how to have the various teams work together. Obviously, trying to keep guys who were familiar working with each other together as much as possible, but knowing that everybody was going to need the help in order to get the project done.
Doug: That's hard work. Why do you think people are volunteering to do it?
Jason: Not for me personally, but for a lot of people, they have ties to the veteran community, whether it's family, friends, coworkers. I think that means a lot to them. Anything that they can do to give back, and I think that's really the driving force behind this project.
Doug: Is Saluting Branches something that goes all across the country or is it just in specific areas? Do you know?
Jason: It is all across the country. They do pick specific cemeteries each year. They put out a list of where those cemeteries are going to be. It's not the same cemeteries every year. The goal being to obviously move through the cemeteries and give everybody some value. I don't know how they're selected. That is not something I'm familiar with and the director down at Palmer didn't really know how he got picked either, but was certainly very happy to have the help.
Doug: Yes, do how did it start for you?
Jason: For me, it was literally a phone call to my office. It happened to be a day I was at my desk for a little while. The CEC that answered the phone was familiar with the Saluting Branches program because we'd sent volunteers before so she felt like it was an important call that I might want to take even though I was doing other stuff and I'm glad I did.
Meeting or talking with the director, he let me know what the plan was and that they hadn't had a site supervisor set yet and everything started turning in my mind and I thought that we had a pretty good opportunity here to really be able to help them out and knowing Palmer is actually a cemetery that we had worked at for in the past outside of Saluting Branches, so I was familiar with the cemetery on top of that.
Doug: I think it's just wonderful that they are going around to different cemeteries you work one year here or maybe two years here and then move on to another one everybody gets a little of the work done, that's pretty special, I think.
Jason: Yes, absolutely. I think one of the best things when we were finished everybody was sharing pictures and list of volunteers and things like that as they're doing their various social media outreach and whatnot and so lots of thank yous there. The next day Jim actually reached back out to me and I think the most powerful thing that he said to me was that that day of service for him was the best day he'd ever had at the cemetery since taking over as director and that meant a lot to me.
Doug: Wow, and that's pretty powerful. How did you get into this business and why is this job right for you especially with this extra responsibility of coordinating a lot of the Saluting Branches work locally, how did you get into it?
Jason: I started with Davey actually when I was 18 years old over in East Cleveland and I've been at my current location in Horsham for the last 20 years. I love being outside is how it started not to mention that at least in Ohio the Davey was paying better than everybody else, so that was a good motivating factor.
It's gotten in my blood, I've always had a strong suit towards management, always been in some sort of leadership-type role so it's a good fit between the two aspects of it. I think now the meaning is changing to me, the things like this Palmer project where we're preserving historic trees, preserving green spaces as I've had kids means a lot more to me than just to be an outside aspect.
Doug: Well, I have a connection over to East Cleveland too in Lakeview Cemetery where my grandparents are buried and they have a thing they're called Daffodil Hill, I'm obsessed with Daffodils. As far as Saluting Branches go, what do you hope that the cemetery gets out of this work that you're giving?
Jason: Mostly the tree preservation side of things because some of these trees were massive and probably dated back to the beginning of the cemetery we're darn close which is pretty important both historically, but as well as a boric culturally so I like to see that tree preservation side of things. I like to see green spaces that are being preserved where people can come in feel safe, maybe get a little bit of history out of it, and have that all go together when the cemetery doesn't look inviting as it were.
People are going to be less inclined as they're walking around Center City to stop in and take a stroll and maybe get a little bit of that history out of it so I think having a nice-looking safe spaces especially when it's a green space in a big city is really important.
Jason: Well, Jason, I'm going to leave it right there that is great stuff, and congratulations on what you're doing because looking from the outside it seems amazing it seems very complex, but it seems like just such a positive thing so thanks for your time and thanks for sharing these stories.
Jason: I appreciate, Doug. Thank you.
Doug: What an absolutely wonderful way to give back. Tune in every Thursday the Talking Trees podcast from the Davey Tree Expert Company. I am your host Doug Oster and do me a big favor, please subscribe to the podcast so you'll never miss a show. If you've got an idea for an episode or maybe you want to comment, send us an email at podcasts@Davey.com that's P-O-D-C-A-S-T-S at D-A-V-E-Y dot com and as always, we like to remind you on the Talking Trees podcast. Trees are the answer.
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