How did you get into arb?

[maybelateron]

I spent all my teenage weekends and holidays working on the farm over the road, loved every minute of it. Wanted to go into farming but parents persuaded me to follow the family line into medicine. Became a GP, loved the job I trained to do. After 14 years in a stupidly busy practice I realised my mental health would not survive at this pace/stress. Decided to follow my outdoor work needs so went part time GP for 12 years, and started self employed arb work, after doing CS 30 31 38 39. Took on two employees while still working both jobs. Decided at 53 that enough was enough, still loved the GP work I trained to do, but system driving me mad, AND loved the arb work/climbing  just as much, so went full time into arb.

[Jamie Jones]

Drifted into Arb and Grounds Maintenance after a long and successful career as a photojournalist, when I moved away from big cities to a rural area.

[KateH]

Thanks for the votes so far... we'd love to hear from more of you! The stories have been really interesting to read too. We're looking to understand how the people who come to arb hear about jobs in the industry so that we can see where there are gaps. Thanks! Kate & Beccy 😊

[KateH]

1 minute ago, KateH said:

Thanks for the votes so far... we'd love to hear from more of you! The stories have been really interesting to read too. We're looking to understand how the people who come to arb hear about jobs in the industry so that we can see where there are gaps. Thanks! Kate & Beccy 😊

To vote scroll the top of the page & use the Arbtalk poll, thanks!😊

[rarefish383]

I was fourth generation in the family. When I was a kid my Dad, his Ex FIL,1 BIL, my Uncle and his SIL were all Licensed Arborists that owned their own business. I never knew anything else. When Dad retired in 1986 I gave up the family business. I was almost 30 years old and had worked 3 years without taking 1 day off. Even weekends were spent giving estimates.  I went to work for UPS where I eventually got 8 weeks a year off. But, I still loved climbing and continued to climb as a "Contract Climber" for other companies. Finally gave up climbing at age 60 when I had both knees replaced. My wife says I can't be lived with if I don't run a saw for an hour aday. I have about 70 chainsaws, most over 70CC's, a dozen over 100CC's, couple years ago I bought a Brush Bandit 65 chipper to keep the invasive species under control on my 30 acres. My wife is correct, I'm happiest if I can step out the front door and smell fresh split Oak firewood, milled Poplar, or chipped Pine. At 66 I can't think of what I'll do if I cant use a chainsaw, even if it's an ikle MS170.

[rarefish383]

On 14/10/2022 at 08:25, Steve Bullman said:

My brother got into it first. I started splitting wood for him on the Sundays for spending money when I was about 15. Got my first full time job at 18, and as I had mondays off I would go out working for him doing groundwork. This was back in the days before wood chippers so there was plenty of dragging, stacking in the back of the truck, and stamping down. Couldnt use a chainsaw so I would have to wait for him to come down from the tree to trash everything down in the back so I could get more stuff in.
It was a long wheel base transit with a 12ft buck, and no tipper...so as well as hand loading it, we had the job of pulling it all off by hand at the end of the day which was no fun at all.

 

Was offered a full time job at the age of 21 and went on to do 21 years in Arb before hanging up my harness.

Thanks for the old memories. When I was 16 I started driving my Dad's brand new Chevy C30, 12' stake body, no tipper either. When we stacked brush we would put 2 long poles down the middle, with just enough room for one guy to stand between them, and did not fill that hole in. Toward the end of the job we would stack a lot of weight toward the back of the pile, then strap it down good. When I got home I could back up to our burn pit, stand between the poles and lift and the whole load would slide off into the pit. About once a month Dad would call the fire Dept and tell them we were starting a brush fire. No problem. In 74-75 he bought an Asplundh 16" chipper, big for back then, but still no tipper. So, I had to pitch fork the chips off. Finally in 1978 he bought a Ford F600 with a 12' chipper box and TIPPER. Don't tell anyone I was driving the commercial trucks under 21 years old, I didn't know I wasn't supossed to.

[KateH]

Three more days to pop your X into our 🌳 survey 👆🔝... it's really quick and you'll make us 😊 - Thank you!

Edited October 21, 2022 by KateH

[rcbprk]

Similar story for me as some of the folks before, but I’m still in the transition phase. I’ve had a career in education since I graduated 15 or so years ago. First in schools, then museums and now universities. Although I’ve enjoyed it I have long felt that my working life should involve the outdoors and ideally making it a bit of a better place to be. Over lockdown I did a distance learning arb course, a pile of practical volunteering with local environmental charities and at the beginning of the year went down to 4 days at work to build up some relevant experience in surveying. 
 

Surveying and consultancy was the bit of the industry that interested me the most from the off, maybe coming from an academic (read: soft hands) background? Managed to get acquainted with a local consultant with 20+ years experience who has been amazing in getting me out on all kinds of sites, from single tree planning applicants to giant rural estate surveys. It’s been a sort of apprenticeship in my late 30s and I’ve loved every minute of it. Next step is to jack in my job at the end of the year and work towards surveying full time from the spring. 

[KateH]

On 22/10/2022 at 19:14, rcbprk said:

Similar story for me as some of the folks before, but I’m still in the transition phase. I’ve had a career in education since I graduated 15 or so years ago. First in schools, then museums and now universities. Although I’ve enjoyed it I have long felt that my working life should involve the outdoors and ideally making it a bit of a better place to be. Over lockdown I did a distance learning arb course, a pile of practical volunteering with local environmental charities and at the beginning of the year went down to 4 days at work to build up some relevant experience in surveying. 
 

Surveying and consultancy was the bit of the industry that interested me the most from the off, maybe coming from an academic (read: soft hands) background? Managed to get acquainted with a local consultant with 20+ years experience who has been amazing in getting me out on all kinds of sites, from single tree planning applicants to giant rural estate surveys. It’s been a sort of apprenticeship in my late 30s and I’ve loved every minute of it. Next step is to jack in my job at the end of the year and work towards surveying full time from the spring. 

 

Thanks so much for this. It's so great to read that you're coming into Arb with these values and getting support from someone already in it too - brilliant! I don't know whether you've connected with us outside Arbtalk but we are the UKs only specialist Arb recruitment agency and always on the lookout for people with the skills you're learning. We're at [email protected] or on 01743344466 if you'd like to chat. Wishing you all the best and hope to stay in touch. Kate (& Beccy) 😊

[KateH]

The results are in!

 

ARB SURVEY RESULTS - WHAT DO YOU THINK?

In October we started a mission to find out more about how word travels about careers in Arb.

One of the things that came up at APF in September was that there don't seem to be enough people coming into Arboriculture in general, so we decided to ask some questions. I made a couple of questionnaires, one on Arbtalk and one on Instagram, which was also shared on Facebook.

 

The sample isn't very large, just 50 people, but the findings were interesting. We had more replies than actual votes, and some didn't quite conform tothe questons, but I've done my best to make sense of them.

 

The question asked was: How did you find out about a career in arb? And the possible answers were family/friend, careers advice, a stranger, the internet or 'other'.

 

 

The standout finding is, I think, that no one seems to hear about arb through careers advice and most people hear about it because they know someone who is in the industry.

 

Is this a problem or an opportunity? It's probably both.

 

Not everyone wants to work outdoors. Tree work can be physically tough and certainly requires the ability to cope with most weathers, whether from up a tree or underneath one. It makes sense that people who are in arb and enjoy it are the best ambassadors for it.

 

That said are we missing an opportunity to spread the word outside the world of trees?

 

How could we tell more young people about this career? And who should we even tell?

 

People can be so kind, and the arborists of Instagram are no exception. While we desperately encouraged people to answer our questionnaire one arborist, George Husher, jumped in and sent us the survey results from her dissertation in 2018. It's a huge piece of work, with respondents from all over the world, and throws up some interesting results.

 

One that particularly grabbed me was about roles prior to coming into arb:

 

Out of the 423 respondents 306 had worked in other roles before coming into arboriculture. That seems a very high number. It may be that the outdoor industries attract a higher proportion of transient workers, which is probably true, but if people can come into it at any time, then that's an opportunity too. Attracting the right people and creating a working environment which is likely to keep them interested in arboriculture could be part of the solution.

 

What do you think?

 

Do you have different insights or suggestions as to how we can promote arb careers together?

 

We'd love to have some open discussion around this and learn what we can do to help. Either catch us on Linkedin, Instagram or Arbtalk or email us at [email protected] to share your views.

 

Thanks! Kate and Beccy

 

Edited November 9, 2022 by KateH