It started with me planning a small, recreational climbing day with a few women from Davey Tree in the Twin Cities area. It ended with 40 women getting together in Chicago, empowering and supporting each other – as well as doing a bunch of climbing.
My inspiration for this event was a weekend in Massachusetts with some of the most amazing women in arboriculture. I was fortunate to climb and learn with the Women’s Tree Climbing Workshop (WTCW). It was one of the most influential, inspiring and encouraging weekends I have had. The WTCW has created a three-day event that I wholeheartedly believe every woman in tree care should attend at one point in their career.
In the spring of 2019, I started my career at The Davey Tree Expert Company, an accredited, 49-year TCIA member company headquartered in Kent, Ohio. I was lucky I found a shop that supported my career.
I never expected myself to end up in tree care. I never even knew it was a career path. I came in with no experience. But in one year, I had been able to become a crew leader and obtain my commercial driver’s license (CDL), my applicator’s license and my ISA Certified Arborist credential. There are also many tasks around the shop I started taking care of, including ordering gear and conducting training.
Just as with many others, I was the only female in the field for a while. It can be hard to adapt and strive in an industry that is not designed for you. Arboriculture as a whole is advancing and growing astronomically, but it still has a long way to go. It can cause feelings of isolation and frustration. It is also frustrating because, as a woman, I rely heavily on technique and not just pure strength. I didn’t know how many women worked at Davey, so when I first started it felt like I was on an island by myself.
It pains me to see so many amazing women not get the help, confidence and guidance they deserve. With Davey Tree, and an amazing team of women, we created an event to help women. We planned a two-and-a-half-day event that involved safety, training, discussion and, most important, networking.
Months went into the planning. Our goal was to create an event to inspire everyone to realize how amazing they truly were. We wanted to have anybody in the company who wanted to come be able to attend. We invited climbers, plant-health-care technicians, sales arborists, client-experience coordinators and many more. We had our site, lodging and food lined up. We were ready.
Last October, we hosted the Women of Davey Climbing Event 2021 at an amazing site in Chicago with beautiful, mature trees. We had women in different roles speak during the event. We were able to invite Bear LeVangie, executive director of the WTCW, who led an aerial-rescue demonstration.
Instruction stations ranged from beginner to advanced. We had throwline stations, limb-walking stations, traversing-the-canopy stations, an aerial-rescue station and a canopy-boat station (basically a hammock that you place in the canopy of a tree). Instructors were placed throughout, and everybody had a climbing buddy. It was such a fulfilling and peaceful feeling looking around during the event and seeing so many women in arboriculture climbing, networking and smiling together.
I was in awe of how amazing people could be throughout this whole process. As we planned, so many Davey employees wanted to help. We looked to many people for guidance, insight and support, and they did not let us down. I’m so happy I reached out when I did, and to the ones I reached out to for help, because it made the event so much more amazing. It is truly inspiring to work for and with people who are willing to help you achieve your dreams and goals.
All that is left is to start planning the next Women of Davey Climbing Event.
Sydney Hudzinski, ISA Certified Arborist, is a crew leader in the Eden Prairie, Minnesota, office of The Davey Tree Expert Co., an accredited, 49-year TCIA member company based in Kent, Ohio.
