Mounir Fahim, shown here in the tree, started learning SRS techniques by watching YouTube videos. All photos courtesy of Momentum Tree Experts.

Tree work was not a family legacy or a lifelong passion for Mounir Fahim, CTSP, Certified Arborist and owner of Momentum Tree Experts, a two-year TCIA member company based in Novi, Michigan. “I, like many people, basically fell into it by accident,” he says. “A friend of mine was doing line-clearance work for Detroit Edison with Wright Tree Service, and I thought, ‘I’d like to try that.’ So my career started with Wright Tree, and through an apprenticeship, I became a journeyman line-clearance tree trimmer.”

Fahim says he was extremely blessed to be given a firm foundation in correct tree care practices while working at Wright Tree. “There were two or three key individuals there who were important influences in my learning, including Phillip Kelley, CTSP, and Nathan Dillon, who both were at the time a part of the safety and training team (at Wright Tree). For instance, in line clearance, a majority of the time climbers will trim trees with spurs on, but once I learned that this was improper pruning technique, I decided I would muscle through and do it the right way. So I taught myself how to climb without spurs and eventually started teaching myself SRS techniques after some serious YouTube ‘studying.’

“I have a propensity toward pursuing excellence, I think partly because of the way I was brought up and especially because of my Christian faith later in life,” adds Fahim. “That really reinforced my desire to do the right thing in all areas of my life.”

Taking the big leap
Fahim launched out on his own in 2019, the same year he became engaged to his wife and now general manager, Danielle Fahim. He continued to work full time for Wright Tree as he started his own company, and left them just three years ago. With one crew of four members, his young tree business appeals mostly to high-end residential clients, with one municipal contract that involves clearing tree debris from the Huron River. “But our bread and butter is properly managing trees for residential customers,” says Fahim. “Our biggest strength is managing tree risk and balancing that with minimizing tree stress. Overall, we want to keep trees around a lot longer.”

To that end, the young business owner (just 29) says he wants to manage the urban landscape in a way that benefits “my clients, my community and the globe, with responsible stewardship as a Christian. I want to stay away from just ‘keeping the monster fed’ and from falling into the trap of just keeping heavy equipment that is geared toward removals, as so many others do, and instead provide real long-term value. What distinguishes us is our commitment to excellence, safety and integrity in all things, and a desire to see trees reach their greatest potential.”

Pursuing excellence
It was this same vision that motivated Fahim and Danielle to pursue TCIA Accreditation. “For us, it was the opportunity to develop procedures, systems and organizational policies that would benefit our company and client perception,” he notes. “And it was the attraction of pursuing an accolade that many don’t, putting our money where our mouth is, so to speak.

Members of the Momentum Tree Experts team. Mounir Fahim says his employees’ high standards made achieving TCIA Accreditation possible.

“The whole team was involved, but Danielle had an enormous workload from an organizational aspect. Definitely the paperwork side of things was the most difficult – not for the weak!” Fahim adds that they were more excited than overwhelmed as they began the Accreditation process, knowing the certification “shows our peers the standards we’re holding ourselves to.” He also states that, “Without a team that is holding themselves to these standards daily, it would not have been possible. They are an equal, essential factor in successfully accomplishing such a lofty task.” The whole process took about a year, with Momentum Tree Experts earning Accreditation in August 2024.

Developing a new employee handbook was a huge undertaking, Fahim says, “because we were agonizing over the details. The (TCIA) template was a great tool to start with, and it gave so much structure that a young businessperson wouldn’t necessarily have. It was a skeleton to build on.

“We really had no surprises along the way,” he continues. “We already had a pretty fair idea of what to expect. What I can say we learned is that good intentions are great, but they have to be backed by systems, and you have to understand how things work legally as a business, or unfortunately, you will eventually learn the hard way. TCIA has prepared us and equipped us to avoid a lot of unnecessary challenges in that respect.”

Fahim adds, “I give humble credit to the many things I learned from Wright Tree about doing things the right way, like proper roadside setup, PPE, job briefings – all high-level things that shaped my business.” He also has pursued various credentials, including becoming Tree Risk Assessment Qualified and an Oak Wilt Qualified Specialist, an ISA Michigan credential. Most recently, he received his Prescriptive Pruning Qualification through the Florida Chapter of the ISA – led by the efforts of Dr. Ed Gilman.

Mounir Fahim tries to show his clients that, with proper pruning, cabling, bracing and other measures, they often can preserve their trees rather than take them down.

“Accreditation has helped us in terms of building the business and having a scalable, ethical foundation, and builds upon everything we believe in,” Fahim concludes. “It gives us a great sense of pride and satisfaction, especially as a young company, and I think it will help us hire the right team members in the future.”

Speaking of the future, where will Momentum Tree Experts be in five years? “Bigger!” says Fahim with a laugh. “My biggest hope is to have a holistic, organic PHC (plant health care) division. I also hope we’re the leaders in correct tree planting in our area. And in five years, I hope we’re in the financial position to be able to deny the removal of mature, healthy trees that clients want removed without real justification. We are seeing way too many trees removed early due to mismanagement, lack of solutions and fear- and ignorance-driven sales. I want to show them we can manage those trees instead with proper pruning, cabling, bracing and other measures for much longer than they realized.”

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.