Having worked for the same tree company for 42 years – starting when he was 19 – Tony Wilber has a steady handle on tree work, safety and crew training. But, he says, “Every day is a learning experience.”

A Tennett Tree Service crew conducts an on-site job review prior to the start of work. All photos courtesy of Tony Wilber.

That is why six-and-a-half years ago he earned his Certified Treecare Safety Professional (CTSP) credential from TCIA, and has put it to good use as general foreman at Tennett Tree Service Inc. in Windham, Connecticut, a TCIA-member company since 1999.

A relatively small company with just 30 employees, Tennett Tree works mostly commercial and state Department of Transportation (DOT) contracts. The company has put Wilber, along with help from Steve Ganoe, another Tennett veteran of 39 years, in charge of safety training. With his years of experience, Wilber has developed a depth of skills for training employees in climbing and working around utilities.

Tony Wilber says, “Every day is a learning experience” at Tennett Tree Service Inc., where he’s worked for 42 years.

“Gaining the CTSP was just another level of training to add to my resume. But when we bid on contracts, companies see we’ve got a CTSP on staff. It looks good,” he says, adding that it shows the company is doing the right things to be safe.

Eversource, an electric utility serving Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Hampshire, is Tennett’s biggest customer. “Eversource appreciates that we have the CTSP,” says Wilber. “Being that it is a big company, it hires companies that care about safety. You have to be on top of it all the time, for a company like that. It really stresses safety. It wants to see the documentation, and we are able to produce it.”
But, he adds, it looks good to any business or organization. “We had a minor issue with OSHA, which came in and looked at everything. Having a CTSP on staff might have helped a little bit.”

The two-day CTSP course was interesting, says Wilber, who attended with Ganoe.

“The first day had nothing to do with tree work. The message at the end of the day was that not everybody listens the same. In a roomful of people, you tell them the same thing at the same time, and they all may hear it differently,” he says.

About 40 people in the workshop followed the trainer’s instructions on taking a piece of paper, folding it several times one way, then another and finally ripping off the center. “Most end up with a lot of different-looking papers,” Wilber notes.

“That’s a good way of demonstrating that they all don’t get what you’re saying. The message is, you are training a group of people for tree work, and you have to take a different approach with each person,” Wilber says.

When training a group of people for tree work, you have to take a different approach with each person, says Tony Wilber, shown here at far right.

Wilber and Ganoe have incorporated lessons from the CTSP training on their job sites. Daily, at each work site, a job review takes place discussing the day’s work, which tree or trees are going to be cut, hazards such as ditches or electrical wires and other alerts. “That’s how we make it work, make it hands on, go over what they are doing and make sure we have the right staff and equipment for the job.”

“I like the fact that the CTSP credential shows we care about safety and that we took this extra level of training,” says Wilber. “Also, more people know what it is now, so that’s helpful.”

For more information about the CTSP program and upcoming workshops, go to www.tcia.org and, in the pull-down menu, click on the Education/CEUs tab, then click CTSP & Qualifications.

Tamsin Venn is founding publisher of the former Atlantic Coastal Kayaker magazine and author of the book “Sea Kayaking Along the New England Coast,” and has been a contributing writer to TCI Magazine since 2011. She lives in Ipswich, Massachusetts.