When TCI Magazine first wrote about Cumberland Valley Tree Service — Landscaping in 2013, the company had 30 employees. A decade later, they have 85 full-time, year-round employees and as many as 96 during the growing season.

George and Lisa Pogue credit their association with TCIA, as well as becoming an accredited company in 2007, as the key to building the confidence they needed to grow a successful business over the last 10 years.

When it comes to taking advantage of what TCIA offers in the way of training, operations management, career pathing, networking and more, Cumberland Valley is a fully engaged member company. “We’ve been working with TCIA probably 15 to 20 years,” says Lisa. “I think the first thing we did with TCIA was the Tailgate Safety program.

These days, recruitment is vital. You can’t just sit on your laurels, and it’s tough to recruit without a plan or a purpose (to show potential employees). You have to have all your ducks in a row. I don’t want to be a steppingstone, I want to be a landing pad.” – George Pogue

To that end, Cumberland Valley currently uses TCIA’s Tree Care Academy Training Hub, which they customized to their own needs and call their Professional Development Plan. The new employee’s career path begins from the very first day of orientation and follows a carefully planned series of online courses that are mandatory during an employee’s first 90 days.

Credentials are another part of creating valued employees. “We have four CTSPs (Certified Treecare Safety Professionals), one at each of our four locations,” says George. He also confirms that the company has 14 ISA Certified Arborists, six employees who hold the Tree Risk Assessment Qualification (TRAQ) credential and eight who are Maryland state-licensed tree experts.

When we hit the growing-pains size of our company, we realized we needed everything TCIA offers to help us.” – George Pogue

“By far, TCIA’s Accreditation has been the most beneficial thing we’ve done for our growth,” says Lisa. George agrees. “It forced us to sit down and put our thoughts into writing. I had it in my heart and in my head, but it wasn’t written down.”

“Accreditation was important because I thought we were a little informal in our business and undocumented in our training,” he continues. “None of us had any business training, so this gave us the roots and structure that solidified us, so we’d have the confidence to grow. It gave us the pathway to become professional and structured and organized – and to have the confidence to compete.”

Lisa notes that when it came time to secure a line of credit, they realized they had no mission statement or business plan. Going through the Accreditation process helped solve that dilemma. “It also forced us to create budgets and have a plan for expansion,” she says. “It gave us the foundation to go into a regional bank as an official, legitimate company. When they saw what we had put together, they were all in.”

That leveled the playing field for us with the big companies, It means we’re able to recruit head-to-head with them.” – George Pogue

Building friendships is another benefit of TCIA membership, according to George. He and Lisa have been attending Winter Management Conference (WMC) since 2005. “I’ve met PHC people (at Winter Management Conference) who taught us and helped us get our plant-health-care division going, and now we want to help other new businesses,” says George Pogue. “I look for new people every year, those people wearing the first-time-attendee white ribbon. We feel it’s important to help them the way we were helped.”

Also, on George and Lisa’s annual calendar, is attending TCI EXPO each fall. “We took 18 people to TCI EXPO last year,” notes Lisa. “We pay anybody who’s credentialed to go and get CEUs (continuing education units) there. And we always go to the Pre-Conference events.”

“I go to more of the business things, Lisa goes to the Women in Tree Care events and other staff go to check out the equipment and get training,” says George. “That’s what’s so great about TCI EXPO – you get the most diverse information there.”

 

This member feature article is in the WHY TCIA brochure and from excerpt from an article by Patricia Chaudoin in TCI Magazine. . To see the full article, scan here.

To see more stories from TCIA members, see our WHY TCIA brochure. 

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