Taking the high road in his business practices is something Matt Hogarth, owner of Higher Ground Tree Care – an accredited, nine-year TCIA member company based in Granger, Indiana – holds dearly as one of his core values. “Our secret sauce is, we’re going to serve every customer well even if it’s to our detriment – even that cantankerous, high-maintenance customer,” he says. “That’s why our word-of-mouth advertising is huge, and growing.”

The company’s Merlo telehandler during a tree removal. All photos courtesy of Higher Ground Tree Care.

As a faith-based company, Higher Ground was birthed by Hogarth’s desire to do something meaningful and completely different from his previous career path. “That’s what makes my story a little unique,” he says. “I did a total career change.”

Matt Hogarth

After leaving the Navy as a veteran and going to school on the G.I. Bill, Hogarth became a high school civics and history teacher, eventually getting his master’s degree to become an assistant principal. “In the summers, I’d do tree work to keep some income coming in and get a break from the kids, rather than teach summer school.” Through connections and networking, he says he was enticed to leave the security of the public-school system and join a faith-based school for high-risk young men in Elkhart County called The Crossing School of Business & Entrepreneurship.

“I was promised less pay and worse benefits,” he says with a laugh, “but I also was charged with starting up a tree service as a micro-business for the at-risk boys. I wrote grants for funding and then set off to train with ArborMaster.”

XTreme Tree Service, the micro-business, started off “just doing firewood and easy tree removals,” says the former teacher, now a CTSP, a Certified Arborist and TRAQ credentialed. Today, the boys at The Crossing work on everything from tree trimming and stump removal to running heavy machinery.

The next step

About this time, Hogarth realized his passion both for tree care and for mentoring. “I loved being outside and doing something with my hands. I realized I had a real love for making the chips fly and for mentoring the boys,” he notes. “At that point, I knew I wanted to start my own business and be the premier, complete tree care company in my area. I wanted to mentor my employees and give them a place where they could say, ‘I get to go to work,’ not, ‘I have to go to work.’

Part of the company’s safety culture is making sure there is a job-safety brief at the beginning of every job.

“So I cleaned out my bank account and started Higher Ground Tree Care LLC (in 2014),” he says. “I said, ‘I have a wife and three girls and a dog and goldfish, I need to make things happen!’”

And happen they did. Higher Ground has eight full-time and three part-time employees and is known for providing excellent customer service, says Hogarth. “We have nothing but five-star reviews online. Being a small-business owner, it’s tough to always do it right. But I constantly preach to my employees that we’re going to be the best of the best. We’re not some sketchy cowboy outfit like some of the other small companies in our area.”

Another thing Hogarth says that sets his business apart is being the only complete tree care company around. “Most of our work is pruning and tree removals, then plant health care – we’ve been aggressively growing that. We care about the preservation of trees,” he says. Higher Ground also does stump grinding, consulting and crane work, and provides firewood and woodworking services.

Hogarth takes pride in bringing his mentoring skills to his team. “As a former educator, I’m very aware of different learning styles,” he says. “We have weekly Friday donut meetings to discuss the week’s highs and lows and our core values. We’re even doing a book study together right now.”

Crew member Daniel Bliese cutting a log.

The road to Accreditation

According to Hogarth, he learned about Accreditation while attending TCI EXPO a while back. “I was talking to someone (from TCIA), and I got excited that I was already doing quite a bit of what’s required,” he notes. “I thought, ‘This is what a professional, well-run company looks like.’ I also knew that growth would be easier and more efficient to accomplish (after becoming accredited). Then there was the residual effect of the business improving overall. Any professional organization has some sort of accreditation process in place.”

Hogarth admits that going through Accreditation with his team gave him fresh eyes on his company. “Our HR stuff was in place, but our business plan was obsolete,” he notes. “There were other things required that I hadn’t even known about, like developing written safety policies based on ANSI standards.

“Right after we were accredited (in June 2024), I actually had a safety issue come up with an employee, and I now had the written safety policies that people had read and signed off on to back me up,” he says.

“A lot of companies my size don’t pursue Accreditation because they say they don’t have the time,” says Hogarth. “It was a lengthy process to work through, but we dedicated the time to it as a staff. It truly was a team effort.

A climber working with the Merlo to remove a hazardous tree.

“TCIA’s process for bringing us through Accreditation was helpful and very professional,” he continues. “Our site visit was actually super enjoyable. He (the auditor) dinged us on a few small things, like signage and binders, but overall we passed with flying colors. It really upped our level of professionalism. As I often heard in the Navy, ‘Good enough is not good enough.’

“Regardless of whether being accredited makes us any money, the biggest benefit is that our internal processes are more streamlined and organized. It forced us to get to the ‘why,’ and that filters down to everything we do.” However, Hogarth says, Higher Ground actually has gotten a number of commercial contracts due to TCIA’s accredited processes being in place.

In looking down the road, Hogarth says Higher Ground Tree Care is poised to scale the business to the next size larger, thanks to Accreditation. “The stage is set and everything is in place if we do decide to go bigger,” he concludes.

Patricia Chaudoin has been a freelance writer/editor for more than four decades, in areas as disparate as tree care, golf, weddings, luxury travel and international non-profit NGOs. She has been writing for TCI Magazine since 2016.