TREE NEWS
Nich Maidment, CTSP, bought his first knuckle-boom crane roughly 12 years ago and bought a second one three years ago, an Effer 655 outfitted by Altec.
“As much as anything, the equipment has allowed me to keep employees around,” says Maidment, co-owner of Asheville Arborists, an accredited, 13-year TCIA member company based in Asheville, North Carolina. “I don’t want to have a lot of employee turnover. We try to stay away from the jobs where it’s all just strictly manual labor. We try to cater to a higher-end clientele, things that are a little bit more mechanized and easier on the bodies.”
Maidment’s company services primarily residential and some commercial clients in a 50-mile radius around Asheville. Work ebbs and flows, and Maidment runs one to two crews, depending on the workload.
He was expansion-minded once, Maidment says, but his focus has changed. His reliance on equipment is more about efficiency, which has provided pleasant benefits.
“Finding really top-end employees is tough, (and) keeping them is tough,” Maidment says. “I realized that instead of trying to do more and more, I can back off just a little bit, flow with the demand and ramp up production whenever I need to, but also have a safety net whenever something breaks. That’s been my philosophy, and I’m able to charge a little bit more to be able to do that.” (TCI Magazine)
Asheville Arborists is a team of ISA Certified Arborists and Tree Workers that have served Western North Carolina since 2010. The team’s passion for trees is evident in their well-researched and expertly managed approach to tree care, pruning, and removal. In the last three years, Asheville Arborists has steadily increased its workforce and annual revenue–this year projecting a 20% rate of growth in both categories.
BUNCOMBE COUNTY, N.C. (WLOS)
by Karen Wynne
Tree crews like Asheville Arborists said after the snow fell, calls to clear downed trees came rolling in. Owner Nick Maidment expects to get even busier after this coming weekend when some heavy rain could bring down more trees. "The soil loses the ability to hold roots," Maidment explained. "Whenever we look at trees that fall over, they can either fall over because the soil is too saturated, to hold the trees up, or there are going to be structural issues." (read more)