Greg Ranallo’s company name, Teacher’s Tree Service, may allude to the years he spent as a public school teacher in Minnesota, but it still applies to his and his employees’ current arboricultural work. Teacher’s is a 17-year TCIA member company based in South Burlington, Vermont, and its crew members take the “teacher” part seriously.
“I’d like to see the industry as a whole move in the direction of educating each other, our clients and the broader community,” says Teacher’s operations manager and consulting arborist, Sarah Pears. “There’s a lot of good science out there now as to how trees react to everything from abiotic stress, like flooding or drought, to biotic stress from pests and pathogens.
“Our method for working with clients has always been about education. Arboriculture is not something normally discussed by the general public, but it’s important and it’s changing all the time,” she continues.
A “teacher” from the beginning
Greg Ranallo began climbing in 1980, worked a stint as a logger in Alaska then started his first company in 1988 in Minnesota. He worked summers as an arborist to supplement his teacher’s salary before moving to Vermont to raise his family and enjoy the outdoor lifestyle. He started Teacher’s Tree Service in Vermont in 1994.
Ranallo is one of five ISA Certified Arborists at Teacher’s, which has 14 full-time employees and several seasonal full-timers.
Pears, whose background is in forest health and management, also is a Certified Arborist and is responsible for Teacher’s day-to-day operations. Additionally, the tree service has two Certified Treecare Safety Professionals (CTSPs), including Derrick Bailey, the company’s safety director.
Pears adds that the majority of Teacher’s tree work is residential, along with some municipal clients they serve within the Champlain Valley and beyond. “We have many clients who have been with the company for as long as Greg has been in business,” she says.
Passionate about educating our clients
“We certainly do tree removals, but we’re passionate about educating our clients,” she continues. “For instance, I talked to a client recently who had an ash tree she was concerned about. We talked about pruning and fertilizing it, etcetera, in an effort to save it, or taking the tree out and replacing it with something more suited to the site. This particular client wanted to hear the whys and hows of my thinking. She was very receptive to my suggestion of replacing it with something flowering and native, like a serviceberry or a common witch-hazel.
“Our knowledge and the fact that we take the time to explain choices is something our clients prize. We look at our clients as long-term relationships, and we look at their trees as an ongoing investment.”
Along those lines, Pears notes, “Our service is our product. We look at every tree and every job individually – there’s no one size fits all. Every tree, every site and every client is different. Along with Accreditation, this approach is what sets us apart.
“We also are known for our professionalism. Our crews all use Bluetooth headsets, so there’s no yelling back and forth on the job site. And we get feedback all the time that our crews are very professional and polite. Greg’s hiring philosophy is, we don’t hire anybody we wouldn’t want to have lunch with.”
Growth leads to Accreditation
According to Pears, company growth was the main thing that motivated Teacher’s Tree Service to seek Accreditation, which was completed in November 2023. “Since I came on board in 2020, we’ve seen about 50% growth in staff,” she notes. “The company was continuing to grow, and in order to do that successfully, we needed to systemize and prioritize our processes. Accreditation offered the scaffolding to work through that systemization.
“There were a number of us involved (in the process),” says Pears, “but I was the one responsible for keeping things on track. It took a long time – about two years – because we worked through the process methodically and carefully. We ended up with an employee handbook, a safety policy and a career pathway that are ours alone, nothing boilerplate.”
Pears and Ranallo looked to TCIA and its mentors along the way. “I worked closely with Mundy Wilson Piper as a mentor, particularly in developing a matrix for credentials and our employee career pathways,” she says. “TCIA was very supportive and patient with us, giving us an extension so we could complete everything required for Accreditation. It’s certainly an undertaking, but I’m very satisfied with where it’s taken us.”
Another reason for becoming accredited was the need for an efficient training program. Without a doubt, Pears says, developing an internal training program was the most challenging part of the Accreditation process.
Using TCIA’s online courses
“Our owner (Ranallo) was doing everything, from sales and payroll to training new hires, completing jobs and invoicing. We found that training in the field and production are sometimes in competition. Now we’re using TCIA’s online courses (through Brightspace), TCIA Tree Care Academy manuals and field training guided by our own competency checklists, which has helped us to create a structured training program.
“It took a while to wrap our brains around the training part, because it was complicated and we have very high standards,” Pears adds. “It continues to be an ongoing process.”
As Teacher’s looks to the future, Pears sees plenty of room for growth in their PHC division. The company also recently acquired a grapple-saw crane specifically to deal with hazard tree removals. “It’s in part because of EAB (emerald ash borer) and the need to safely remove ash trees, since they have the structural integrity of a Styrofoam cup after they die. We never want to put anyone up in a dead ash tree.”
Growing the company’s Habitat Enhancement services
Pears also anticipates growing the company’s Habitat Enhancement services, essentially a management plan for Vermont landowners looking to sustainably manage their trees and woodlots. That could involve such services as removing invasives, restoring native species, and supporting habitats for wildlife, including migratory songbirds and pollinators. “It’s definitely outside the box of traditional arboriculture,” Pears notes.
“TCIA has been a great steppingstone for us in our growth,” she says. “And Accreditation definitely sets us apart in this area. We’re one of five accredited companies in Vermont, and one of only two that are locally owned and operated.
“It (Accreditation) has delivered things that our employees are excited and pleased about – our employee handbook, a more comprehensive safety policy, a training program that is directly tied to an internal career platform. They also are proud to be part of a company that has earned TCIA Accreditation.”
Patricia Chaudoin has been a freelance writer/editor for more than four decades, in areas as disparate as tree care, golf, weddings, luxury travel and international non-profit NGOs. She has been writing for TCI Magazine since 2016.
