Monica Hemingway on an Everest Base Camp trek in Nepal, October 2008. (Photo courtesy of Monica Hemingway)

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Monica Hemingway, Ph.D., so strongly supports TCIA’s Women in Tree Care (WITC) initiative, she became an annual Women in Tree Care sponsor as well as co-sponsored a WITC networking event held during February’s TCIA Winter Management Conference ’25 in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands.

When not encouraging women to not only enter the tree care industry but be its leaders, she runs her business, Tree Care Marketing Solutions, a nine-year TCIA corporate member company based in Tucson, Arizona. Started in 2008, the company combines Hemingway’s digital marketing expertise, honed from years in corporate work, with her knowledge of tree care. She has been a licensed Connecticut arborist since 2011.

WITC’s mission is to build a strong network, inclusive of all genders, that facilitates mentorship, education and support for women and other underrepresented groups, furthering their presence and advancement in the tree care industry. And Hemingway supports that notion and that mission.

“I’ve worked my entire career in male-dominated industries,” Hemingway notes, including 20 years as a Ph.D.-level industrial psychologist and statistician in the chemical, transportation, tech and shipping industries. “There weren’t many women Ph.D.-level statisticians or researchers,” she says. Nor female mentors, she adds, for guidance on how to handle being marginalized, having contributions discounted or being talked down to by male colleagues.

She tried to fill that mentorship role herself as part of the Women’s Innovation Network, providing direction to up-and-coming female leaders. She also researched and spoke about how to achieve work-life balance – to have it all – without compromising either, with a focus on professional women. Later in her career, she conducted executive assessments for C-suite candidates and did leadership development coaching. Part of her success in the corporate space she attributes to being tall, outspoken and confident in a room full of men.

Then she switched gears.

A new perspective

In 2016, Hemingway was laid off. She went to Nepal, climbed to Mt. Everest base camp, sat there on the side of the mountain and decided to leave the corporate world. “I needed a different perspective, and being on Mt. Everest certainly gave me a different perspective. I came back and decided to follow my passion, which has always been horticulture and arboriculture.” She started Hemingway Horticulture, a landscape design-and-build company with a focus on organic methods, native plants and sustainability.

“I had to market the company, so I took what I’d learned from all those years in corporate and applied that to my marketing, and before I knew it, the business became a success,” she says. More people started asking her to do marketing for them, and so Tree Care Marketing Solutions was born, serving tree care companies throughout the U.S. and Canada. She’s been at it ever since, applying her skills in coding, website development, data management and AI-driven processes.

“You don’t find a lot of women in these positions, either,” she says.

Nor in the tree care industry, she notes.

Hemingway with Patrick Turley, left, and Stephen Carlson, both with Arbor Masters Tree Service, at the Women in Tree Care event held at Winter Management Conference, February 2025. (TCIA Staff photo)

Where is everybody?

When Hemingway attained her arborist license, “There were very few female arborists in Connecticut at that time,” she says. “I thought, ‘This is weird, why are there so few?’ This is a fantastic career, you have so many options. You don’t have to be the climber 60 feet up the tulip tree like my husband, yelling, ‘I love my job!’ (her husband, Jack, ran his own tree care company).”

There are so many ways to have a fulfilling career in arboriculture that don’t involve what people may traditionally think about, like climbing, cutting down trees, or being a heavy equipment operator, according to Hemingway. “I don’t climb trees; I get vertigo if I even climb a stepladder!” she says. But she says she loves being an arborist and feels that she has made a vital contribution through consulting, PHC, ornamental pruning, educating and, yes, even dragging brush. “You can have an incredible career; you don’t have to be limited in how far you grow. You can do this. Sure, there may be some physical differences between you and the guys you happen to be working with – although I want to point out that some of the best climbers in the world are women! – but that’s a very minor part of being an arborist,” she notes.

There is so much opportunity, and the industry doesn’t do a really good job of letting people who are maybe in high school know that it is an option, offering a different route than college, if that is a preference, according to Hemingway.

“Based on the schools I’ve visited, students have no idea what an arborist is, let alone that there are great female arborists. If it’s already starting at that level, with young people not thinking of this as a career for young women, then we really have a problem,” she says.

Role models

Over the years, she’s been fortunate to work with some of her clients at women-owned or co-owned businesses. Some, she notes, are running eight-figure companies and have grown the business from the ground up. “Plus, we have some strong women leaders and owners in TCIA, even on the board now,” she says.

Hemingway also wants to help women understand the leadership opportunities and provide education about what leadership looks like, given women tend to lead a little differently from men. “So, how do we make that work in a male-dominated industry, without being patronized? Because we often have a different leadership style that is more inclusive, not so top down. It works very well, but often women don’t get a chance to lead that way, because it’s traditionally not been done in this industry.”

From left, Monica Hemingway, Tree Care Marketing Solutions; Erin Demers, TCIA; David White, TCIA; Carmin Schiavone, SavATree; and Ash Connelly, SavATree pose during TCIA’s Winter Management Conference ’25 in St. Thomas in February.

Leading the way

Hemingway notes that she walked away from the corporate world and chose arboriculture as a career 16 years ago. “How can I take all the experience I have and help in this industry, especially with growing female leaders? That’s why I wanted to sponsor WITC, and I hope to continue to do so, not just by providing money but on a personal level as well.”

In summary, Hemingway offers this bit of advice: Practice authentic leadership. “The reason why you’re a successful arborist or moving into a leadership position is because of who you are and what you’ve done to get to that point. You don’t need to change – don’t listen to anyone who says you should.

“If you’re trying to be or act like someone else, because you think that’s what is expected of you, you’re doing a disservice to yourself and to the people you could be leading,” Hemingway says.

“Knowing how fulfilling it can be to work in this industry and knowing that many women don’t realize this is even an option – put all that together, and that is what motivated me to be a sponsor for Women in Tree Care,” she says.

For more information visit TCIA’s Women in Tree Care initiative,  or email Erin Demers, TCIA’s manager, workforce recruitment & retention, at erin.demers@tcia.org.

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.