Arborist Career

Arborist Career

The Real Poop

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? Well, you may need to ask a philosopher or a physicist if you have a free afternoon (and evening) to hear the answer(s).

What's more important is the force that caused the tree to fall in the first place. Did it succumb to structural deficiencies and crumble like a bad NFL team's defense in the fourth quarter? Or did it succumb to destabilizing root rot?

It may not seem like this issue would matter in a forest where there is no one to hear a tree fall; but what if no one was there to hear the tree fall merely because no one was home at the time? What if the tree actually fell on a home, or a parked car, or the neighbors' (mostly) innocent goat? Sure, the goat might have heard noises, but really, who cares? It was a goat. Pass the mint jelly.

We still need to know why the tree fell. In fact, it would have been better to know that the tree was at risk of falling before it actually fell, so that the car could have been parked somewhere else, or the goat could have been penned in another field, or the house could have been...well, protected by any pruning necessary to make the tree safe. Or alternatively, there's always euthanasia (called firewood in PG-13 households).

This is where an arborist comes in. Arborists are horticulturists who specialize in the care of trees. They identify problems with health, stability, and structural integrity, and prescribe necessary procedures to correct these problems in order to keep homes, parked cars, and even goats safe. They're the most familiar type of horticulturists because they work with the most prominent plants in the garden; namely, trees.

Unlike arborists, most of your other horticulturists are placed in virtually no danger at all. Those lads and lasses who work in nurseries, for example, don't really have to worry about a tulip falling over and crushing them, or getting their hand chopped off in a water pitcher.

Like many of the weird varieties of trees they assess, arborists are an odd breed. They love trees way too much to work in other, more lucrative industries. Unfortunately, money does not grow on trees. The reward for a career in arboriculture, the horticulture of trees, comes from being able to do what one loves to do. Those who do not enjoy doing it should probably do something else...hopefully something fulfilling and lucrative.

Arboriculture is not an industry that arborists would recommend to their friends. It happens to be among the most dangerous legal industries in America. In fact, it's so physically demanding that most strive to become inspectors (those who do not climb trees or drag brush) before they hit age forty.

Those brave souls starting a career in arboriculture typically begin as "groundsmen," which, as the name implies, means that they tend to everything on the ground, while the "climber,"…well, climbs, and tends to do the more glamorous work in the trees.

Groundsmen have it pretty rough. They have to get whatever the climber needs and tie it onto his climbing line, while keeping the ground clear of debris. There's always more brush to drag, sometimes great distances, to where it gets staged for chipping. (And then putting.) All of that brush must be fed into a fierce machine that will just as soon grind up the groundsman feeding it if it gets the chance. It's the hardest and least glamorous work in arboriculture. And that's saying a lot.

Some of the more efficient and physically fit groundsmen eventually learn to climb and become professional climbers. These crazy people are the ones who get noticed. They climb the tallest of trees like acrobats and perform major pruning that gets them all the glory, er, um, three seconds on the evening news from a camera a mile away. (That's glory in Arborland.)

They also remove trees. Sadly, the glory is short lived. Because the work is so physically demanding, climbers try to finish that part of their career while young. After forty or so, they can go back to being groundsmen for a few more years. Even though groundsman work is more demanding, the work isn't off the ground.

The best of the old climbers though, try to do more inspection of trees as they do less climbing. By that time, they really know what to look for, as well as how to deal with their clientele. The problem is that there are fewer climbers than there are groundsmen, and there are fewer inspectors than there are climbers. Therefore, many arborists make career changes somewhere during the process. Fewer—hopefully the best—make a lifelong career of it.

If the horticultural industries were like Star Trek, arborists would be the Klingons. They are coarse, yet honorable; vulgar, yet passionate about what they do. All the other horticultural professionals consider them to be dregs of horticultural society, but envy their skill and athletic ability. While others are growing baby trees, and others are planting young trees, arborists are pruning and doing battle with the biggest and baddest of the old geezers.

Ah, human ingenuity.

As a professional arborist, you've got your options. You can work commercially, taking jobs from homeowners, power companies, or government agencies; you could work for the city, maintaining trees on public grounds and developing tree ordinances; or you could go into utility arboriculture working for a utility company, which means that you'd be spending plenty of time around power lines. That image you have in your head right now of that guy falling and grabbing onto the power lines to stop his fall as he gets pumped full of 50,000 volts of electricity? That could be you. 

So yes, there's definitely an element of physical risk, and yes, you may have to be up at the first cock-a-doodle-doo and put in long hours after that. But at least you're out in nature, putting in some quality time with those trees you love so very much. You're protecting your fellow human beings from dangerous situations as well as protecting the trees themselves, and being a protector is enough to give you great pride in your work.

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it...an arborist should have been brought in earlier to determine what could have been done to preserve the tree and to correct the situation. Hopefully, the neighbor's goat is fine.