Dan Holliday. All stills courtesy of Simeon Balsam and Phillip Sutton.

The tools and techniques arborists use every day did not appear fully formed. They evolved through decades of experimentation, collaboration and occasional failure, shaped by people who saw a problem and believed there had to be a better way.

Those people – and the stories behind their contributions – are the focus of “The Arborist: Innovators & Influencers,” a seven-part documentary series created by working climber and content creator Simeon Balsam and filmmaker Phillip Sutton. The production will make its U.S. debut at TCI EXPO ’26 in Fort Lauderdale, bringing a largely undocumented chapter of arboricultural history to an audience that is still helping write it.

How it all started

The project began nearly four years ago as an effort to record the history of European arboriculture. But as Balsam and Sutton followed the development of particular tools, techniques and practices, the boundaries of that story quickly expanded.

“The project originally started with a real focus on Europe because that was where I felt there was a huge story to tell,” Balsam says. “But as we started filming and speaking to more people, it became obvious very quickly that the story of arboriculture isn’t really divided by borders.”

As a filmmaker rather than a practicing arborist, Sutton encountered much of that history for the first time during production. Each interview introduced another connection: a person in another country, a manufacturer, an organization or a development occurring elsewhere in the industry.

“You see ideas traveling backward and forward between Europe and America through competitions, trade shows, organizations, manufacturers and, most important, people,” he says. “That changed the scale of what we were making.”

The resulting series traces a wide range of developments, from traditional climbing systems, mechanical devices and top-handle chain saws to advances in rigging, cranes and grapple saws. It also considers how arboricultural knowledge has been shared, first through personal instruction, books, competitions and trade shows and later through online forums, YouTube and social media.

Even across seven installments, however, the filmmakers do not suggest they’ve captured the industry’s complete history.

“Bringing it to TCI EXPO therefore feels quite special, because the U.S. isn’t separate from the story we’ve discovered. It’s woven all the way through it,” Sutton says.

Looking back

For younger arborists, the series offers a chance to look more closely at equipment and practices that may now seem commonplace. Sutton hopes it will encourage viewers to ask who developed them, what came before them and what problems prompted change.

“One advantage I’ve probably had from not being an arborist is that I haven’t taken any of this stuff for granted,” he says. “I’ve been able to look at something that might be completely normal to somebody who’s been climbing for 10 years and ask, ‘Why is it like that? Who came up with it? What did they use before? Why did it need to change?’”

Balsam hopes the film also encourages younger arborists to consider their own place in the profession’s continuing development.

“I want people to understand the people behind that progression – the characters, the innovators and sometimes the crazy ideas that pushed our industry forward,” he says. “And hopefully it gives younger arborists a bit more appreciation for where their profession has come from, but also makes them think about what they’re going to contribute to it next.”

Mark Chisholm during his interview for “The Arborist: Innovators & Influencers.”

Passing it down

Over nearly three years of interviews, the filmmakers recorded stories that might otherwise have disappeared. Along with technical milestones, they sought to capture the motivations, relationships and setbacks behind them: why someone devoted years to developing a piece of equipment, who taught that person and how the resulting knowledge reached others.

“That’s why I think TCI EXPO is such a fitting place to share the documentary,” Balsam says. “You’re not just watching history on a screen. You’re potentially standing in a room with people who were actually there.”

“A documentary can preserve some of those stories, but it can’t replace that person-to-person exchange,” adds Sutton. “If showing the films gets somebody younger talking to somebody from an older generation, asking questions, finding out more and then eventually passing something of their own on, that’s probably one of the best things that could come from the project.”

“The Arborist: Innovators & Influencers” will make its U.S. debut at TCI EXPO ’26 in Fort Lauderdale at 4:30 p.m. on Friday, November 13. The event also will include a panel discussion featuring Donald Blair, Gerald Beranek, Mark Chisholm, Kevin Bingham, Jared Abrojena – and more!