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Vertical Forestry has deep expertise in arboricultural consulting, and our partners regularly assists clients with expert advice as it relates to arboriculture. We also offer strong support for tree services looking to expand into consulting. Click here to find a consultant near you.
There’s a perception among consumers and industry professionals that ISA certification offers a benchmark of competency in arboriculture. For partners without a deep bench of certified arborists, there’s an opportunity to grow by gradually ensuring that client-facing sales staff achieves this credential. However, there’s no rush; we see ISA certification as a valuable first step only! If companies don’t emphasize the second, third, and subsequent steps, this credential itself will have very limited value – to the employee as well as the client. We believe in ongoing training and continuous improvement. Let each salesperson get certified when it makes sense for them and their career.
In the meantime, the best way to improve the expertise of staff is to simply provide services as the opportunities present themselves. It works like this: A tree service company salesperson or manager realizes that a client is in need of a consulting service that they don’t currently offer or understand. Instead of passing on the opportunity, they ask their client if they’re open to a proposal from a partner company to perform the work. If this results in a contract to perform work, Vertical Forestry collaborates with the contact person to provide the deliverable for the client, resulting in mutual learning and a positive result for the client.
As companies grow and begin to offer recurring services such as Plant Health Care, the demand for continued expertise and knowledge grows. This is especially true if a company has exposure to construction clients, municipal clients, or institutional clients, which often value the planning phase of arboriculture in equal proportion to the proper execution of the work.
We’re proud to collaborate with professionals from diverse industries – as well as our partner companies – to offer consulting services in accordance with the growing demand. Please see existing programs for more details.
Vertical Forestry believes that great arboriculture begins with certification (through the ISA credentialing process) but that the training and investment in arborists should never end. That’s why we invest heavily in the training required to bring our partners’ arborists to the next level.
As you read through the service offering below, think about what services you currently offer, which services you’ve heard requested, and where you’d like to see your company go. Not every service fits every company’s unique approach to the market. But there are tremendous opportunities with commercial & institutional clients when you can present your existing strengths in conjunction with professional reports.
It’s not just about clients. Of course, we want the best advice and deliverables for our clients. But it’s also important for every professional to be able to achieve their full potential. We think some good people leave when they no longer feel challenged, and we look at advanced arb
Inventories
Institutional and commercial clients increasingly value precise and actionable data about their tree resources, especially if the data can be easily accessed and updated.
A tree inventory is a comprehensive list of trees, complete with geographic data and any relevant tree characteristics, used by property owners to aid in making decisions about their tree assets. If you are in need of a tree inventory, please contact Vertical Forestry and we will put you in touch with an arborist to help you determine the scope of your inventory and provide you with a proposal for one.
Vertical Forestry combines skilled arborists with a sound technology platform to deliver this data in a cost-effective way to clients – whether they envision an ongoing relationship or a simply need to make shorter-term decisions about their trees. You can trust Vertical Forestry to provide high-quality deliverables and accurate information.
Tree information isn’t used in a vacuum. Let us know what your focus is – environmental stewardship, streetscapes & livability, tree canopy, or land management, and we’ll create an inventory that makes decision-making easy to make and to justify.
Risk Assessment
The field of Risk assessment is broad and overlaps into every sphere of arboricultural work. The fear of tree failures or damage drives the tree care industry generally. Mastering the correct approach to Risk Assessment - for the team of professionals within a tree service – is the key to safe climbing, confident clients, and good decision-making.
A tree risk assessment is used to determine the relative risk of a tree or trees. They come in 3 basic levels, 1 through 3. A Level 1 risk assessment is used to assess many hundreds of trees and screens primarily for dead trees and defects visible from one side, such as when driving by. The deliverable may be verbal or may be a single field within an inventory matrix. A Level 2 Assessment involves a more careful (360-degree) inspection of each individual tree, with a brief written deliverable. A Level 3 assessment includes more advanced tools, including tools used to detect invisible decay, and a comprehensive risk-matrix which determines a risk classification for the tree. The deliverable is typically a formatted report. If you are in need of a tree risk assessment, please contact Vertical Forestry and we will put you in touch with an arborist to help you determine the scope/level of risk assessment required and provide you with a proposal.
We can educate arborists quickly and efficiently on the subject and drive greater professionalism within a tree service. This in turn means happier clients and more productive work flows. Some areas of expertise are:
Traditional Risk Assessments: This is the most-requested service of an arborist consultant and the classic consulting deliverable. The clients wants to know how long their tree will live or how likely their tree is to cause damage, fail, or uproot. The Certified Arborist enters stage left and makes their assessment – perhaps in the form of a comprehensive Level 3 assessment….but the context, clarity, and format of the deliverable is very important, as are the follow-up steps. Getting this right is the key for the future client relationship.
Storm Damage: Unfortunately, when storms are serious it often creates waves of tree issues – just when resources are stretched thin. The layers of tree issues can be serious. Often trees fall into other trees or are rendered partially destroyed by storms. This can create serious hazards for those whose job it is to clean up. We train our arborists to carefully inspect trees not just from the clients’ perspective – but from the worker’s perspective as well. This allows for Vertical Forestry partners to deliver high levels of confidence after weather events – confidence that clients’ and employees’ interests are protected.
Dispute Resolution: We think all our partners benefit when our arborists are respectful and diligent members of the community. The sometimes requires the ability to perform incidental dispute resolution services between neighbors. Offering clear and accurate description of tree risk allows for this to happen naturally. Vertical Forestry provides clear coaching for professional staff so they will be prepared when they need to do this.
Inventories and Construction: Risk assessment can be provided at many different levels; a basic Level 1 or Level 2 assessment in included in inventories and construction consulting as an aid to decision making. The quality and dependability of these rapid assessments influences the quality of the deliverable. Honing the skills of arborists in risk assessment makes the final product that much better.
Appraisal
Tree appraisal is required sooner or later by every large organization. Whether it’s a grove of trees lost in a fire, or a plaintiff demanding restitution, determining an accurate and defensible value for a tree asset is important for dispute resolution and effective decision-making. Providing that service can be of tremendous value in anchoring those long-term relationships, especially given that appraisals are often required in times of aversity. We encourage our partners to embrace opportunities to perform appraisals for their clients.
A tree appraisal is performed by a certified arborist or similarly credentialed tree expert who analyzes the value of a tree – whether healthy, damaged, or removed – according to the appropriate valuation approach. These approaches are, generally, the income approach (the tree is appraised according to the income or incremental income it provides), the market approach (the tree is appraised according to the market value of that tree, assuming there are comparable sales to analyze), or the cost approach (the tree is appraised according to cost to replace the tree either exactly as it stands/stood, or as measured by the benefits it provides/provided). If you are in need of a tree appraisal, please contact Vertical Forestry and we will put you in touch with an arborist to help you determine the type or appraisal you’ll need and provide you with a proposal for one; most appraisals are performed on an hourly basis.
As mentioned above, Vertical Forestry can help build expertise by collaborating with partner companies. Appraisals can be complicated, so depending on the circumstances it may take 5-10 jobs for a certified arborist to become comfortable enough with the process to attempt writing an appraisal on their own, and many more before they can complete them unsupervised.
Appraisals are yet another area of expertise that crosses boundaries – once professionals are aware of this side of arboriculture, their expertise is inevitably used to deliver value to their clients’ tree assets. Sales arborists and other professionals are more successful the broader their knowledge is.
Construction Mitigation
Where there is construction, there is a need for tree services to minimize impacts and comply with municipal requirements. Most homeowners want trees to be part of their landscape, and are willing to take the steps necessary to preserve existing trees even as machinery and workers take their toll on the trees’ health. It is difficult to save all trees which are impacted by construction – in part because some impacts are greater than planned – so clear communication is important to maintain good relationships with clients.
Construction Mitigation is the application of arboricultural knowledge and techniques to help a tree survive root damage and the associated stresses to its health. Usually, the arborist prescribes mulch to the root system, a series of sprays and treatments designed to minimize the risk of insect vectors, and/or soil treatments designed to increase soil water retention and nutrient availability. If you are in need of Construction Mitigation services, please contact Vertical Forestry and we will put you in touch with an arborist to help you determine the scope of your mitigation plan and provide you with a proposal for one.
Nearly every city these days has some kind of tree ordinance, and a growing number specify the circumstances under which an arborist must be engaged to assist impacted trees. The work often involves very simple outputs: a list of recommendations or services that comply with the relevant regulation.
The majority of those serves are soil treatments or insect preventative treatments; and in some cases, may involve special fencing, mulching, or air spading services designed to mitigate impact on the trees’ roots or increase the water-holding capacity of the un-impacted roots.
Vertical Forestry can help companies efficiently administer these programs and incorporate them directly into scheduled PHC services to seamlessly meet the expectations of the client or municipality.
Forestry & Land Planning
Arboriculture is, in the view of some, an offshoot of forestry. In Mexico and Latin American the term arboriculture is interchangeable with “Urban Forestry,” although in the U.S. the term “urban forestry” does imply a wholistic, “entire forest” approach to the tree canopy within a city, while “arboriculture” implies the study and practice of caring for individual trees. For most people, the concepts are interchangeable and expertise in one area typically indicates at least proficiency in the other, owing to their proximity.
At Vertical Forestry we view it that way – and believe there’s nothing wrong with crossing back into forestry when our clients require it. So, if a partner company has an opportunity to do land management consulting for a forest preserve, wildlife sanctuary, timber stand, orchard, mixed timber/agriculture usage, or for fire suppression management or carbon credits, consider working with us.
If you are in need of forestry consulting, please contact Vertical Forestry and we will help you contact an arborist to help you.
Vertical Forest Design is actively recruiting people who share in our vision.
