How did your tree-work journey begin?

• Did you grow up in the midst of arboriculture, a member of a family team?
• Did you, like me, stumble upon men swinging – precariously! Wildly! How are they doing that? – far above you as you passed them on the street?
• Maybe you simply needed a job and answered an ad in a local listing.

Chances are, you did not begin as an apprentice.

August Hoppe discusses arborist apprenticeship with members of the New Jersey Chapter of the ISA. All photos courtesy of August Hoppe.

I tend to think of apprentices in terms of the Middle Ages: blacksmiths, artisans, builders. Many surnames still carry traces of their handwork past: Miller, Baker, Smith, Porter – these all point to a lineage. Their very names plainly describe their family occupations. Of course, not all Smiths are swordsmiths or blacksmiths, and these days there’s only a vanishingly small chance of this being the case. And though I have yet to run across someone literally named “Treeman,” a program in Wisconsin may be bringing apprenticeship back with a bang.

Still a bit uncommon
While researching this piece, I found my way to the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development website. Not atypical for a government affair, the website was a bit circuitous to navigate. Even knowing what I was looking for, finding “arborist” listed as an apprenticeship program took a bit of sleuthing. It ended up being listed under the “Service” sector tab, which was symbolized by a crossed comb and scissors, implying stylist services. Not exactly the place I was expecting to find arboricultural work. It was listed alongside occupations as diverse as barber, culinary arts line cook and funeral director. (Firefighter made the list, too.)

Aside from the slight difficulty in finding the program, there it was: the Wisconsin Registered Apprenticeship for arborists, among the first of its kind in the nation.

Ground zero
August Hoppe of Hoppe Tree Service LLC, an accredited, 25-year TCIA member company based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, knows a thing or two about apprenticeship programs. He helped build the state of Wisconsin’s Registered Apprenticeship program for arborists from the ground up, and his company has been host to journeyworker arborist apprentices for 10 years now.

“This is a wonderful way to train staff,” he says, responding to my initial query regarding how he felt about being able to boast an apprenticeship program at his own company. “This program is a key part of the employee’s engagement,” he explains. “It helps build an inner motivation” to learn the necessary skills to be a professional arborist.

I was curious about the actual mechanics of the program – being, admittedly, more than a little jealous of the candidates his company has seen pass through its ranks.

From left, Hoppe Tree Service’s Michael Lawrenz, manager; Fred Hoppe, co-owner; David Rosenthal, arborist apprentice; August Hoppe, president; and Rebecca Dennis, officer manager, all on stage celebrating David Rosenthal’s completion of the apprenticeship program.

Stepping stones
When I began at a Davey subsidiary in the summer of 2018, one component of today’s apprenticeship program was present: employee development handbooks. The structure is an ascending series of booklets that the budding arborist completes and gets signed off on. Learn the basic knots used in everyday arboricultural settings, check. Ascend and descend using a basic MRS setup, check. Perform cutting duties aloft with a chain saw, check.

A qualified crew leader or foreperson ensures these skills have been properly achieved and will put their signature on the paper. Tasks and skills become more complex and might demand prior qualification or a nod from a superior: crane-assisted tree removal, setting up a highline, rigging using a controlled-speedline configuration. Check, check, check.

The Davey system utilized four books, including a qualified-crew-leader handbook. With each successful completion, the employee would receive a predetermined raise (when I was going through the books, it was $1 per book). Finishing and finalizing the last book – the qualified crew leader – meant one was, at least on paper, able to take charge of a crew and run field operations. It was an important milestone for me as an individual, and it opened up a whole new world of options.

Measured growth
I appreciated this model, because it gave me something to aim for. I knew what stood between me and the next promotion, what skills I needed to seek out. It provided a structure upon which to build my craft. There were, of course, vastly different strategies employed by the individual crew leaders who I sought out when looking for a signoff. Some were open and willing, kind and patient with me. Others barked orders and told me to forget about the books and keep dragging brush.

And this is where the goodness of the apprenticeship program comes in, and the other component that my Davey upbringing lacked; apprentices are not at the mercy of the day-to-day vagaries of crew leader moods and whims. On-the-job training is still the name of the game, but these Wisconsin apprentices also have the added benefit of taking a formalized course of study. A local technical college plays host to instruction in myriad subject areas that the aspiring arborist will need to make sense of: biology, soil science, advanced rigging, climbing techniques, etc.

Hoppe emphasized that the apprentices who walk through the doors at Hoppe Tree Care exit the program after three years as fully fledged arborists, ready to tackle the complexities of the industry. But the benefits don’t begin only at the end of three years of hard work. “They’re paid the whole time – they’re full-time employees with our company.”

From the trenches
I was fortunate to speak with a graduate of Hoppe’s apprenticeship program, Vaughn Mehler. Mehler participated in one of the first-in-the-county Registered Apprenticeship programs for arborists. He had come from college, where he studied outdoor-recreation leadership and management and found the structure of the program at Hoppe to be suited to his style of learning.

“Tree work is super enjoyable, and the schooling portion of it was much easier than college,” he recalls. Mehler began the three-year program in March 2019. The program consists of 6,000 hours in the field and 440 hours in the classroom (the required hours have since been adjusted slightly).

The logistics of it are startlingly straightforward – in-field, on-the-job training, like you might expect from a typical tree care company, but with the addition of dedicated classroom time.

I asked Mehler how he felt about the program: “It’s amazing, it really is. I feel fortunate to have been in this program. With Hoppe,” he explains, “you have to become a Certified Arborist (at the end of the three-year program) to complete the agreement.” That makes Mehler a proud ISA Certified Arborist.

He also was encouraged to seek out and obtain his TCIA Certified Treecare Safety Professional (CTSP) credential, and nowadays finds himself running the company safety meetings, serving as a continuing-skills trainer and a crew-leader shadow. Mehler also mentions the excitement and momentum the program produces in the apprentices. “It’s great to see new guys who have come a long way. They come back from a week of learning, and they’ve got all these new things to share and try.”

August Hoppe, center, presents arborists Cam Miller, left, and Adom Hinkle with celebratory Buck Knives gifts after completing their Arborist Apprenticeship programs.

Finding candidates
One of the most exciting aspects of the Registered Apprenticeship model is its reach. High-school guidance counselors have a potentially outsized role in steering youth toward a specific career or sector. (Remember vocational testing, the ASVAB [Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery test that helps identify careers that match a person’s strengths], etc.?) When I was coming of age in a northeastern Ohio farming community, it was well established that you would get into agriculture or the military or head off to college. No one had ever heard of an arborist. I was climbing everything those days (I still am), and would have foamed at the mouth had I known I could literally get paid to climb trees.

“Guidance counselors can look at arboriculture as a legitimate path and steer kids toward this. I mean, would you rather be fixing toilets or climbing trees?” Hoppe asks, laughing.

Conclusion
There are only a handful of states that currently have a Registered Apprenticeship program for arborists, including Wisconsin and Colorado. Georgia, where I live and work, does not. The Wisconsin program has eight private tree care companies and one municipality that currently train registered apprentices.

Rest assured, as more tree care companies demand better talent and retention, expect to see arborist apprenticeship programs cropping up in new places.

Jim Kasper is an ISA Certified Arborist and Climber Specialist. He has a master’s degree in public health (MPH) and is a climber with Gill Tree Care in Decatur, Georgia.

TCIA is an arborist apprenticeship ambassador for the Department of Labor, and TCIA’s Arborist Apprenticeship Training Program model is available to member companies. For more information, email apprenticeship@tcia.org.

For another look at arborist apprenticeship programs, see “Why Apprenticeship? One Company’s Journey,” by Josh Morin, TCI Magazine, July 2023.

These high-school students were celebrating a signing day for various skilled-trade apprenticeships, including arborist apprenticeship, in June 2022 at Wauwatosa East High School in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin.