Transcript From Our Video Interview with Don Winsett at The Davey Tree Expert Company.
Heather:
Hi everyone. And thanks for checking in with us at Funeral Innovations, Trends, Tips, and Technology, where we chat with leaders in the profession to discuss marketing trends, business tips, and technology innovation. And we talk about how digital marketing can help you better serve your families. I’m Heather Mierzejewski. I am the Marketing Director here at Funeral Innovations
Alex:
And I’m Alex McCracken, VP of sales here at Funeral Innovations.
Heather:
And today, we’re super excited to have Don Winsett.
Don:
My name is Don Winsett. I’m Vice President of National Business Development for Davey Tree, out of Kent, Ohio. I have been in the landscaping business for about the last 35 years. I’ve been with Davey Tree for the last eight years. And for the first 20 years, I was pretty much self-employed worked on my own and I did multiple businesses and one of them was a landscape business. And for the last 15 years, I’ve been involved with several really large companies around the United States. And Davey is the last stop for me at this point right now. And it’s where I’m going to end up. Davey is an ESOP company; we’re employee-owned. We were founded in 1880. So we’re in 141 years. And we are very excited about the future and where we’re going. So I’m very excited about the vertical being in the cemetery vertical and where we’re going from there.
Alex:
Awesome. Great. So, and you know, I know Davey Tree is an 11,000 employee company, but can you tell us a little bit about that, where the headquarters are, if there’s any other like satellite offices and more specifically about where you are located?
Don:
Well, I live in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and I do base out of Kent, Ohio. So I do go to Kent on a regular basis, you know when there’s not COVID going on and we can travel. But Davey is in Kent. We were founded there, the Davey family there is a Davey family that started the Davey Tree company. They landed in Kent in the 1880s, and then in 1979, they decided they wanted to sell the company and they asked the employees that they would be interested in buying it. So bought it as an employee-owned company in 1979. And we’ve been an employee-owned company since that time we are located in almost every metropolitan area in the United States. So you talk about Boston and you talk about Chicago, you talk about New York, every major city, we have a hub or a base.
We have about 140 plus hubs, give or take. We have operations in almost every single state in the United States. We also have some operations in Canada as well, so we’ve pretty much cover the whole continental United States. We don’t go overseas although we’ve done some consulting services overseas and we’ve been able to do some networking overseas with some of the software and some of the things that we do on electronic basis, but basically we’re a tree care company with landscape division. We do consulting services and we also have an Institute, the Davey Institute, which does a lot of work with evasive and disease. And we study that and we sent out white papers and we sent out all sorts of information about diseases that are coming into the tree and also landscape market. And that’s one of the ways that we get back to the industry.
Heather:
Yeah. And with regards to the funeral and cemetery space, is there specific regions that you cover with that, or is that also nationally?
Don:
That’s pretty much national. We have a lot of work in the Northeast and a lot of work in the South and we do a lot of work, obviously on the West coast. We, we work a lot with some independence large, independently owned cemeteries or independent, you know, non-profits Woodlawn, Woodlawn cemetery in New York Kensico cemetery in New York. Those are big standalone cemeteries. We work with Cypress Lawn is some of the other iconic names across the United States. And that’s where we feel very comfortable with. Although we do a lot of smaller cemeteries as well. What’s really ironic is the first account that Davey had was a cemetery right across the street from our corporate office, which is still you know, it was still one of our accounts that we have. And it’s now that John Davey Arboretum. So it is an Arboretum that we have right there. And so we have a lot of history in Kent, Ohio. We established ourselves with Kent state university. We do a lot of work there as far as recruitment and also education. And we feel very strongly about our roots there in the Kent, Ohio area.
Heather:
That’s terrific. So, I’ve only been in this profession for a few years, and I’m always amazed at the number of kind of outside vendors that this profession touches. So I was very interesting to hear you speak and talk about the importance of tree care at cemeteries. Can you just talk a little bit about why that’s important, what it means to cemeteries and the families that they serve?
Don:
It’s just so comforting to have tree and tree care and to take care of the tree, but it’s also environmentally so important. I mean, especially in the major metropolitan areas like New York and some of the other areas that I talked about, these are considered urban forest and we don’t have urban forest. I mean, central park is an urban forest. That’s the definition of an urban forest. And with the carbon sequestration, that’s going on, they are so important to have these trees. So it’s not only important for the cemeteries, but it’s also important for the environment as well. And that’s something that people don’t realize what it brings to the table, but for the comfort factor. And the fact that having a tree near a loved one is something that is so welcoming. And it’s just that people go there, they can relax.
And that’s what it’s all about is we want to make these places comfortable, welcoming, and warm and safe. And that’s the other thing is that as these trees mature, there has to be a little bit more care and concern about, are they aging? Are they getting a disease? Do they are they getting proper watering is something starting to happen. And that’s one of the things that we look at because you don’t want to treat a fall obviously, and you don’t want it to fall on something of a four on Memorial, or you don’t want it to fall on a a headstone or actually falling in the road that can cause damage. So that’s the other thing we look at is taking care of the assets of the cemetery. And the tree is an asset as well. People don’t think of trees as an asset, but is that a valuable asset for both the environment and for the cemetery as well.
Alex:
Well, that’s yeah, that’s some things I didn’t even think about is it coming in and probably, you know, the money you spend maintaining those trees far outweighs what it would be if you didn’t and then they cause damage. So an emotional toll is on the families that you’re trying to protect. Right.
Don:
Alex, you’re exactly right. I mean, you know, it’s if, if fell on one mausoleum you know, that it could damage, it has done not only is it damaging to the family that it’s done on, but it’s just the damage. It’s the physical damage that’s done to it as well. And sometimes it’s just, there’s no fault here, you know, it’s lightning or is just that there’s water that ran underneath it, or the tree had caught a disease and it wasn’t early enough. And that’s what we really tried to look at is taking care of that. And so, as you know, some of these cemeteries and some of these major cemeteries that are one, two, 300 acres, they might have three, four or 5,000 trees. That’s a lot of trees, you know, I mean, that’s doing a lot of good, but there’s a lot of maintenance involved, but you get one, you know, microburst that comes through there, or one storm that comes through there and wipes out a whole bunch of trees, that’s causing a tremendous amount of damage and disruption to the cemetery that they can’t perform the services that they need to perform.
So we try to take care of that and we take this very serious. And we try be very careful about keeping the integrity of the tree and keeping the integrity of the, of the cemetery, to where people are very comfortable about coming there and they don’t have to worry about it. And so you, you hear all the time about a tree that fell and then the dam is something or whatever, and you just have to be extremely careful. So,
Alex:
Yeah, absolutely. Well, and you said you’ve been with Davey Tree for eight years. And you know, I know tree care has probably slowly modified itself over time, but have you seen any big shifts and in terms of, you know, whether, how the consumers react to the trees now versus they did eight years ago, or any other trends that you’re seeing?
Don:
Oh, absolutely. I mean now with climate change and just with people starting to be more aware of that, things are starting to change. People are starting to realize the importance of trees. And if you hear just some of the things that are going out, you know, people are planning a million tree program, or, you know, they’re doing all these tree planting programs to replace trees because of the cooler and that there is no doubt about it. When you plant a tree, it’s going to be cooler in that area where it has shade and canopy, to be able to protect that the grass is in the building. So there has been such an emphasis put on it, and there is a software program out there called i-Tree, which will tell you the evaluation of what a tree is from the minute that goes into the ground to when it gets to its mature self.
What is the value of that tree and how much carbon will it actually take out of the year during its lifespan? So that was never before. I mean, that’s been after over the last 15 years where people really starting to study what trees can do and the benefit is done to the environment. So that’s one of the things that we were looking at. And then of course, now people are tracking trees or they’re actually going out and we’re going out and doing full inventories. And we know exactly what GIS, where these trees are placed. And we can tell you and look overhead, and we can tell you where that tree is and what that tree is, the value that it’s bringing that was never done before. You know, so there’s a lot more, that’s being done. People would do an inventory of trees, but they wouldn’t track it like it is now.
And now with handheld items that you have in your hand, when you do maintenance on that tree, you can document that right there. And then it goes into the history of that tree. So, you know, exactly what’s been done to that tree. You know, when the last time it was inspected. So you have an idea of the history of that. And that was, again, is something that’s never been done before. So we’re giving our arborists really tools and instruments to be able to do these things that they can do from a distance. So someone like you could be sitting in your office and it’s real-time information is coming in on what’s being done on that tree there’s software programs that where you can do send out a work order. And that goes directly to the tree company and tells them, okay, I’ve got this problem.
And they know exactly. So the speed of things is just unbelievable, what it used to be. I mean, we used to be hand and paper, and now it’s paperless, you know, a lot more information it’s getting put out there that never before. So as far as technology-wise, we’re just seeing it. I mean, it’s just starting to really, and people are exploding with these ideas now, and we’re also seeing companies in different verticals, let’s say in a large property management group, you can’t see every property and you might be sitting at your desk. So you’ve got to work with the people that are out there, and they’re sending you these reports. You can handle a lot more properties sitting at your desk because electronically, you’re seeing the information. People are taking pictures and saying, this is what you got, and you’ll do a whole transaction and never have to leave your office. You’ll know that there’s a problem. You’ll get pictures of the problem. You get a proposal and signed and sealed, and that can be done in a matter of hours as before it would take forever. You know, it would take a week to do all that. You know, so now its reaction time is much quicker.
Heather:
Those are all terrific advances. And it sounds like it saves people a lot of time and makes their property safer and more beautiful.
Don:
Absolutely. And the other thing is safety is a big key. So we’re looking at equipment now that can be done by handheld, you know, so we’re actually looking at machinery that you can operate from a handheld items. So you’re not putting someone in danger. So because a lot of times you’re just using drones and, you know, used to be, you have someone to have to climb the tree and take a real close look at it. Well, if you’re not, if you’re concerned about it, drones have been a big help in looking at the tree at a view that we never looked at before. So we’re seeing that, Oh, there’s some decay there. And why would you put someone in that tree if there’s decay so we can tell right away, take pictures. And then we know there’s something wrong with that. So we’re not going to put someone in jeopardy as well.
I mean, right now with the freeze that’s gone on in Texas, the big concern is all the Palm trees are starting to die. And so we cannot put people in those trees because they can’t support the weight. So those are the kinds of things that we’d never, you know, with, with drones and things like that. We’re just much more aware of safety. Putting people in bucket trucks instead of actually climbing the trees. So safety is a big concern for us and also robotics. I mean, there is now robotics in the lawn maintenance world that are starting to happen because labor is such a big concern. So if you could do something with a little bit less labor, but still get things done, that’s where, that’s where this industry is going to go. And that’s where things are starting to happen. Technology wise, that is, it’s pretty amazing. It’s, it’s, it’s kinda scary where it’s gonna go, but it’s really, it’s really exciting as well.
Heather:
So it helps for planning too, wouldn’t it? For cemeteries so if they know there’s a copse of trees or a certain kind of trees that are going to be dying off soon, you can phase those out and start growing new.
Don:
Absolutely. And that’s what happened with some of the diseases with the Emerald Ash borer you know, devastated areas. And so we found out that if you, if the tree does have it and you can inoculate it, it’s not gonna eliminate it. Once the tree gets it, it is going to die. It is going to disappear, but you can time that out. And so if you are giving it inoculation, so you can say, okay, I’ll do this Clover trees or this group of trees, you know, five years from now, but you don’t have to get hit all at once. And then you say, what’s the best free to replace it with. And then you can start to plan it, but you don’t want to replant plant all trees at the same time. You want to do it in stages. So it’s different growth patterns and that’s what’s happened.
Some of these builders would come in and there was no fault to these guys. They just came in and they said, Oh, these Ash trees are going to be beautiful. And they put in all Ash trees, well, now they’re all dead. So now you have to do it, have to replace it. So it’s those type of things. And like you said, it’s planning, it’s doing inventories. And if you know what you have, then you can be prepared, like you said, for the future, what you’re going to have to do, because trees are not going away. We’re not going away. I mean, we just have to be able to plan it. And that takes inventory and time and patience to be able to do that.
Alex:
So I’m curious if, if you saw with the last year, much of an effect on your business from the pandemic if that changed anything business as usual or anything, I mean, obviously being outside, maybe not, but I’m curious if there were some big changes for you.
Don:
There was some really big changes. I mean, as far as business was concerned, we were still very busy because we were considered, especially a lot of this was essential workers. We work not only in the cemetery vertical, but in the hospital verticals. And, you know, in businesses where retail centers still had to operate. So a lot of our work was considered essential. Now there were some areas where it just got really shut down and that did affect us, but we were able to shift those employees into other areas to be able to work. But what it did do is just like everyone else, there was a lot more remote. So there was a lot more remote business being done and people, it took a while for that. But we were able to ramp up very quickly with these calls and, and be able to do team calls and, and work with the customers.
But there was already a trend starting to happen that way. We just, every, just like everyone else, it got accelerated. And we started to see that you can actually do business. And in some cases you know, there was, it worked out in a positive because you could hold a meeting with different groups across the country and you didn’t have to fly someplace, you know? So it was the expense of that. That’s an all-day travel. Let’s say that for me, living in Florida, traveling to the West coast, that’s an all-day travel. Right. So then I’m there, I’m there for the meeting and then it’s an all-day back, right? So that’s two or three days, well, I could have this call and we could get two hours done. And then I still have, I can go back to my day.
I can go back to what I’m doing. So we did find out that that was very different and it was beneficial in that way. But the thing that we really noticed is that people want face to face. They still want to see you. So as soon as things started to kind of open up, there was that need to still get onsite. You still have to have people on site to be able to look at some of these situations that are going on. You can’t do it all by remote and you can’t do it all. So there was a mix. Some of it worked out really well because you could do calls and those types of things and present you know, options to people. But you still had to have people on site to be able to go and look at it, unfortunately, because of our size, we had enough people in locations that could actually get there, but there were safety protocols that were put into place.
You could only put so many people in a vehicle you had to have, obviously the six-foot distances we did stagger starts for our branches so that some people started earlier. So you didn’t have a whole group of people come in at one time. So there were a lot of things that had to be put into place, constant washing of hands, the sanitizers, the Gators, the face mask, all those types of things. And actually we saw our safety numbers get better because we were taking that carefully, you know, so our safety overall was starting to benefit. So there was a benefit to that as well of being more conscious of what was going on. And, and so that was a positive as well.
Heather:
That’s great. It’s interesting to hear how COVID has impacted everyone differently. There are similarities and differences. I just, I find it super interesting. I think you talked a good bit about technology, so that was really interesting to me. Do you work with funeral homes too, or mostly just cemeteries?
Don:
Mostly cemeteries, but there’s a lot of combos, you know, so you get the combo situation. I mean, in some states you can’t have a combo. So we don’t work just directly with funeral homes. But what we’re seeing right now is a lot of funeral homes are wanting to update, you know. And it’s just like with your home. I mean, we saw a big surge of people that are staying at home, wanting to update their home. So it’s the same thing with the funeral home. People are wanting to update their funeral home and update their cemeteries a little bit as well, give it a fresh look, you know, give it something that maybe they didn’t think about before, but because they’re there every day and we’re looking at them a little bit more, they want something to do. So we are seeing a push towards let’s update a little bit and do some of those. So if there is something that is very positive as well, it’s a fresh start getting a new look. So we’re seeing that.
Heather:
Is there anything that you’d like your funeral homes or cemeteries to be thinking about or something you think they should all really be considering and planning for that maybe you see consistently not doing
Don:
People think that they don’t have to take care of trees. That’s probably the biggest misconception that we probably, that we have when we talk to people is that they feel like the trees can take care of themselves and listen, they’re big, they’re massive. And they can to a certain degree, but there is a maintenance that has to go along with it. And that’s probably the biggest thing that people don’t realize is that doing something it’s like maintenance on your car or maintenance on your house or whatever if you just do a little bit, and we talked about this before, then you don’t let the catastrophe happen. You know? So if you do a little bit of trimming and you let the airflow, go through the tree, when the storm comes through, the chances of it falling are less because you’re doing the maintenance we have proven studies and we’ve seen this in a lot of the cemeteries and areas that we work for when we are taking care of an area and we’re maintaining it and we’re doing just regular maintenance on it and an area where we don’t do it, trees will fall in that area and they’ll survive in this area.
So we show that and we’ve got documentation to prove that that’s important. So a little bit of money spent here is so much better for you in the long run. But again, that’s probably the biggest thing that I think people just don’t think of. They just think, Oh, they’re healthy. They grow in the forest all by themselves and nothing happens, but you know, not in a community or in a park setting, you have to take care of them. And that’s probably the biggest thing that we have to convince people what they have to do.
Alex:
That’s funny you know Heather and I are both in Colorado and we always get a spring storm, right. Just takes out a bunch of branches. And I got a lot of maintenance done on a big Cottonwood I had in my backyard and ever since then, I have yet to have a big branch fall during a snow storm. So it’s a very subjective analysis of that on my part. So it’s good to hear you have objective data to back that up too.
Don:
And you know obviously I live in Florida, as I’ve mentioned before, and I live right on the beach. I mean not physically on the beach, but I’m, you know, I’m a mile and a half from it. So our concern is obviously are hurricanes. And, you know, there is a pruning and if you prune your tree and you allow a certain breeze, you know, a certain wind to go through it, there’s studies at the university of Florida that shows how much you can take out of a tree and it will not damage the integrity of the tree, but will allow the wind to go through. And so there’s a constant worry about that. So people down here are constantly wanting to take care of their trees, cause it’d be dumb. They’re going to fall on power lines. You’re going to fall on houses. I mean, you look at some of the damages are going to have tornadoes, a different story. I mean, there’s just, that’s going to be very destructive, but if it’s just a wind event, you’re exactly right. If you’re taking care of it, it’s really going to help eliminate some of the damage that’s going to be done just by a little bit of maintenance.
Alex:
Great. Yeah. Well, so you know, wanting to end with this question, we ask everyone here, but what do you feel like the biggest lesson you’ve learned from serving in this profession is?
Don:
Well, it’s a personal thing. I mean, I think that this this industry, the people really care, you know, I mean, and that’s what you learn when you work with these people and work with cemetarians and you work with funeral directors is the caring and what they give back to the community is I it’s at a whole nother level, you know, I mean, it’s almost like a hospice volunteer. It’s someone that just, it’s an incredible giving to help people through the worst time of their life. Right. And so we’re, I’m just honored to be able to work with these people and be able to help in some way. So I think if that’s one thing is that these people are extremely special. They have a stress level that that is beyond what we can think about it certain times.
I mean, to deal with this every single day, knowing that this is probably the worst day of this person’s life, that’s coming in there to talk to you and to handle it with the professionalism that they do and to get people through it. It’s just awesome. So I would think that’s what I’ve taken away from this, by working in this industry. And I’ve been working in this industry for probably the last 10 years, you know, devoted to it and a certain degree always been around it a little bit, but never as focused as I am right now. And I just walk away, which is complete gratitude. I mean, it’s just like unbelievable. So that’s what I take away from that. So I thought about that question, but that’s, that’s probably the biggest thing I take away.
Alex:
That’s great. Yeah. I I heard once that somebody said if funeral directors could, could get paid in hugs, they would, but they gotta eat too.
Don:
Exactly, exactly. That’s a good story.
Alex:
Well, Don, we really appreciate your time. For everyone out there, if you’d like to see any more of our Trends, Tips and Technology videos, throughout youtube.com/FuneralInnovations, we have plenty up there. We do summaries every once in a while; so feel free to check those out. From Funeral Innovations and our whole team here, we want to thank you Don for your great interview and for taking time out. And we appreciate you attending.
Don:
I appreciate you asking me and I’m just glad to be able to help. And if I can promote this industry in any way, I mean I’m happy to do it, so I appreciate it.
Heather:
Thank you much.
