Every once in a while, you have the opportunity to meet someone you have long admired. For whatever reason, these meetings often are disappointing. But not always. I recently had the opportunity to meet Dave “Niceguydave” Stice at TCI EXPO ’22, and, fortunately, Stice was not at all disappointing. The “Niceguydave” moniker, by the way, is something he picked up while serving in the Marines.
Most production climbers reading this will be familiar with Stice. For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of following his career, I will do my best to shed some light on this major advocate for the tree care industry.
Trees, life and diesel engines
Since TCI EXPO, I have had several opportunities to talk trees, life and 7.3-liter diesel-engine swaps with Stice, so I feel sufficiently qualified to profile him and highlight his contributions to professional tree care.
Stice’s first taste of tree work came in the summer of 1989 in Washington state, while working as a sawyer in the Hotshots. For edification, a sawyer is trained and qualified to cut down trees in wildfires. Hotshots are highly trained and skilled wild-land firefighters.
\Once fire season ended that year, Stice transitioned into commercial tree work for most of the late fall, winter and early spring months before another fire season started. This yo-yo pattern repeated itself for several years – with a few stints on commercial fishing boats along the way – before he made the leap into full-time commercial tree work in 1999.
For the next 10 years, Stice worked as a ground worker, climber, foreperson and in-house trainer for local tree companies. In 2010, he made the leap into the turbulent waters of contract climbing, consulting and industry training. He then joined the team at WesSpur Tree Equipment Inc., a 28-year TCIA corporate member company based in Bellingham, Washington, where he has since filled the role of safety guru, gear enthusiast and skills coach.
A true role model
It was in this role that my admiration for this random “Nice Guy” from Bellingham began. Shortly after Stice took over this new post with WesSpur, my professional climbing career began. As an aspiring climber, I had a near unquenchable thirst for climbing instruction. I was only able to quench that thirst by spending countless hours watching videos of guys like Dan Holliday (climbingarborist.com), Patrick Masterson (educatedclimber.com) and Dave “Niceguydave” Stice.
As much as content like Holliday’s and Masterson’s aided me, it was Stice’s no-frills, simple instruction that I gravitated to the most. As a fellow large climber (200-plus pounds), part of me thinks Stice’s “nontraditional” climber’s physique gave me, as a 225-pound (all muscle!) climber, confidence that I could become highly productive. This, even though I may look like I ate Dan Holliday, Thomas Paine (CTSP, Rooted Arbor Care) or Henk Morgans (Evergreen Tree Care and Australian Institute of Arboriculture) before saddling up!
Reflecting on years of experience
After his more than 30 years in the industry, I thought it was fair to ask Stice what it is about the tree world that has kept him so engaged. Without hesitation, he says, “Hell Andy, I just love living a life on rope.”
Thirty years of living a life on rope takes a toll on the body, but Stice still relishes the rigging world. Whether rigging wood or rescue rigging, the unique challenges presented by both these highly variable disciplines continue to act as his siren song. It’s this continual pursuit that has helped him achieve SPRAT Level 1 certification, inclusion as a Petzl Technical Partner and credentials as a Wilderness First Responder and an ISA Certified Arborist.
Stice’s back, knees, hands and shoulders are not what they were 30 years ago. But the love of the rope keeps him going. It also emboldens him to continually press for industry advancement in technical expertise and safety. His career focus has shifted from full-time production work to the instruction of the next generation of rope workers. He does this through conference engagements, continued education and training and his work with his training company, Ascension Group Northwest, in Bellingham.
Gear advancements
As a fellow gear enthusiast, I felt I needed to ask Stice what he thinks the greatest gear advancement has been in the last 30 years. He didn’t have an answer as readily available as he did for my previous question. But after grappling with it a bit, he says, “The inventions of Kevin Bingham’s Rope Wrench and Morgan Thompson’s Unicender were game-changers. With those, the dawn of attainable stationary-rope-system (SRS) climbing was now at hand.” This selection should not be all that surprising, considering that both devices are still immensely popular and widely used today.
Looking forward
We next discussed the changes that Stice feels the industry needs, and his response tracks with his reputation as a safety and training advocate. “The industry is sorely lacking in sufficient real-world medical training,” Stice says. Obviously, he’s not advocating for everyone to run off and become a doctor. But he does feel that emergency medical training is far too often overlooked.
“We are doing our co-workers, clients and companies a disservice by not having more in-depth emergency-response training programs while working in a field as uniquely hazardous as ours,” Stice says. He also says he believes every climbing crew must have a trained aerial rescuer available anytime there is a climber in the air.
Due to his years of industry experience, I thought it prudent to ask what he expects the industry to look like 10 years from now. “I believe we will see more and more mechanization in tree care,” he says. “There will always be a need for highly skilled climbers, but I expect to see more companies mechanizing instead of looking for qualified tree workers in a difficult labor market.”
With this new emphasis on heavy mechanization, Stice also says he expects to see much more government regulation in tree care, and a significant uptick in the number and size of fees associated with larger-scale tree work.
As our conversation wound down, I asked what he hopes his impact will have been on the tree industry. “I just hope that I help influence enough climbers to make the industry safer,” Stice replies.
Just as many people admired from afar fail to live up to their fans’ expectations, many fall short of their legacy goals. Luckily for Stice, he doesn’t have to worry about either of these. He has already achieved his legacy goal and has lived up to the hype for me and many other climbers who look up to him. All of this while living a life on rope!
Andy Jones, CTSP, is an ISA Certified Arborist, production climber and co-founder of Rooted Arbor Care Climbing Solutions, based in St. Louis, Missouri. He is also a member of TCI Magazine’s Editorial Advisory Committee and has presented at TCI EXPO.
Navy, not Marines. FYI Marines gave me the call sign later in my career.