Revolutionizing Tree CareTech Innovations with Evan Dackow

Episode Overview

Episode Topic

In this episode of Timber Talks, host Mindy delves into the art and science of Arboriculture with special guest Evan Dackow, Vice President of Jolly Green Tree and Shrub Care. Together, they explore the significant technological advancements and the evolution of arboriculture practices, emphasizing the shift from traditional methods to innovative, tech-driven approaches in tree and shrub care.

Lessons You’ll Learn

Listeners will gain insights into the transformative impact of technology in arboriculture, from drone usage for tree inspections to AI-enhanced scheduling and tree health monitoring. Evan shares fascinating stories from the field, illustrating how these technologies not only improve efficiency but also enhance the safety and effectiveness of arboricultural practices. The discussion also highlights the importance of integrating new tools while maintaining the essential human touch in customer interactions and tree care.

About Our Guest

Evan Dackow brings decades of experience from Jolly Green Tree and Shrub Care, a company founded by his father in 1976. With a deep-rooted passion for arboriculture, Evan has witnessed firsthand the industry’s evolution from rudimentary practices to sophisticated technological applications. His expertise in utilizing cutting-edge tools like micro-injections for plant health care and drones for aerial inspections makes him a visionary in his field.

Topics Covered

This episode covers a range of topics including the historical context of arboriculture, the role of AI and drones in modern tree care, and the ongoing challenges of labor shortages in the industry. Evan discusses the balance between using advanced technologies and retaining the indispensable personal approach to client service. Additionally, they address how arboriculture is adapting to environmental and societal changes, ensuring sustainable practices that support both plant health and urban ecosystems.

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About the Guest: Evan Dackow, VP of Jolly Green Tree and Shrub Care

Episode Transcript

Mindy : Welcome to another episode of Timber Talks the art and science of Arboriculture. I’m your host, Mindy. And today we have a very special guest with us. Joining us is Evan. Okay, I’m going to start again. How do you pronounce your last name?

Evan Dackow: Draco.

Mindy : Decor.

Evan Dackow: Draco. Like with a J.

Mindy : Okay. All right. So I’m going to start again.  Welcome to another episode of Timber Talks the Art and Science of Arboriculture. I’m your host, Mindy. And today we have a very special guest with us. Joining us is Evan Dacko, the vice president of Jolly Green Tree and Shrub Care. Evan, welcome to the show.

Evan Dackow: Thanks for having me, Mindy.

Mindy : Oh no problem. I’m really interested in this topic.  I’m just really interested in the advancements and stuff that’s going on in the field. So, Evan, let’s start by discussing some of the key innovations and advancements in the arboriculture industry. Can you share how the field has evolved over the years, and what significant changes you’ve witnessed at Jolly Green Tree and Shrub Care?

Evan Dackow:  considerable. We’ve been around for 48 years now. My father started our company in 1976. So you know it. You know, in the beginning it was single tanks. And you go, you know, you go from front to back, right to left, you know, you know, personal protective equipment wasn’t even a whisper back when my father started, you know, you know, the the old story is that you knew you were in trouble with the climber when he threw his beer bottles down at you. Yeah, yeah. You know, so, you know. But, you know, now we’re in a point where THC, you know, plant health care is on a prescription level basis. You know, we’re using a lot of micro injections. We’re, you know, I’m doing inspections on trees via drone. You know, that’s, you know, who the heck would have thought that? You know, it was? What can I see from the ground? Or maybe I’ll put a climber up there to, you know, get some third hand information. But yeah, you know, the fact that for a few hundred dollars, I can get it, get a drone up there, you know, and inspect trees like that and get a full visual canopy and, you know, get a get 100 foot view at 200 foot view, which wasn’t possible with outside of a helicopter. You know I can do that. Be on my smartphone. You know, it’s incredible. And, you know, the other stuff like airspeeder, you know, you go back I think it’s been around about 20, 25 years. You know, things that we’ve utilized from other industries.

Evan Dackow: You know, it started out in the utility industry and it’s become one of the more useful tools we have for physical compaction and everything else of trees. And, you know, overall plant health care.

Mindy : So you’re looking the innovations have been more toward tree health care and trying to keep the trees versus sort of like a clear cut approach. If a tree’s got a problem, you just take it down.

Evan Dackow: Yeah, a lot of guys that was the answer. You know, plant health care is you know, is truly in its infancy. Realistically arboriculture is one of the youngest sciences we have outside of, you know, you know, even genetics goes back to Mendel, you know, back to, you know, the Petersons and everything like that. You know, Martin, arboriculture really only goes back to Chicago. And Doctor Shigo was he published, I think, in the 70s. The you know, that’s the real heavy duty understanding of what we have as far as arboriculture.

Mindy : Right. Do you see AI playing any role in the future with arboriculture?

Evan Dackow: Streets are some.You know, it’s,  I think AI is going to help with scheduling because it’s going to, you know, enable us to amass more data. But, you know, we’ve gotten things down to growing degree days and everything. When things are hatching, when things are going to spoil it, you know. But I could see I was taking, you know, some having a role in it in some, some aspects. You know, I know a lot of people who have used that, who use AI systems for their office. You know, that’s what’s answering the phone calls. You know that my social media I have you know, I can have automatic responses via I write okay, you know, it’s you know, so do you.

Mindy : Do you see robots possibly coming into the industry and doing.

Evan Dackow: Some, some there’s a lot of drone spraying happening right now. They’re, you know, they’re using drones in a lot of orchards.  yeah. You know, it. You can automate it. I no longer need to ask one of my employees to, hey, do you want to start at 2:00 in the morning so we can spray this material out of this tank on these trees where nobody is anyway? Well, they’ve automated it. You know, a certain amount of that is okay. You know, you can get out what you put in, right? But that, you know, it enables people and an ever lessening labor market. Right. You know that it’s you know, I know my father posted a job back in the 70s. There’d be 25 people, 30 people walking in for the job.  You know, or they’d literally be people walking into the office and going, hey do you have any work? I haven’t seen that in 20 years.

Mindy : Right, right.

Evan Dackow: You know, so it’s we have to adjust.

Mindy : Right. So do you feel that the industry,  that technology is going to come in to kind of meet that labor need or you do you feel that, you know, that people have a negative view of what an arborist does?  You know, it’s dirty and hot and they don’t want to do that kind of stuff.

Evan Dackow: Some aspects of it, you know,  there’s a lot of people who don’t mind dirty hands and clean money. You know, it’s it, you know, you you can, you know, you own a company. I don’t care what company you own. That company owns you. You know, I have a very understanding wife who, you know, doesn’t question why I’m at the office till 830 at night. She knows I’m not out. You know, at the bar. She knows where I am. She knows I’m at this desk that I’m talking to you from right now. Right. You know, but,  from an employee standpoint, you know, a mid-level high level management standpoint, you know, you’re not worried about certain things going on. You know it’s a good it’s an industry right. You know some a lot of people don’t want to work inside. I’m one of them. You tell me I got to spend my whole day inside. They’ll thank you. I’m going to go outside. That’s where my stuff is. 

Mindy : So I know agriculture has a very similar problem with labor because it’s, it’s not a  Well, some people view it as not an honorable type of profession. It’s somebody else’s, you know, somebody else’s problem to get dirty and all that stuff. And so they in AG, there’s a challenge sometimes to hire people to grow our food,  whether it’s livestock or plants, because there’s that perception of what it is, what the job is.  Can you,  give us some examples of the latest tools and techniques that are making a difference in tree and shrub care? Because we’ve been talking about trees, but what about shrubs?

Evan Dackow: Well, you know, it’s again, it’s I to the ability to mass that all that material. You know, the fact that I can I can carry in my truck and an 800 pound microscope which a digital microscope that’ll link to my phone via Bluetooth, you know, that I can really get in there. Okay. What’s going on?  You know and you know just a simple thing of what I have an issue that I can’t figure out. You know, be it something I haven’t seen, you know, just the ability for the pathologist that I deal with at the research lab out in Cornell for Cornell University, out in Riverhead. They can then put that into their sphere. And, you know, 2015,  I had a client call. I had a tremendous problem with beech trees. Both beech trees were dying and I couldn’t figure it out. So I brought it to the pathologist. And, you know, via their network, they were able to find this written about once the year before in Japan. So through technologies of translation and all this other stuff, you know doctor, doctor, she’s a very smart woman. To the best of my knowledge, she doesn’t actually speak Japanese. She, you know, she couldn’t read a Japanese report, but, you know, you know, things that can translate it and get it, and they can run that network. And, you know, you know, they’re all tying into the same electron microscope and Riverhead, but they’re all over the country, all over the world. To have a conversation about it.

Mindy : Right? Right.

Evan Dackow: You know, to diagnose those nematodes, you know, there’s a certain aspect of what we do that, you know, can technology do it? Yes. But you know, you know, I like the I like what we do because there’s still a lot of me sticking my hands in the soil, grabbing the foliage and, you know, getting the visual, the overall visual is, you know, a big aspect of diagnostics.

Mindy : Right. Well, you know, I don’t think whatever machine or or. Yeah, technology we talk about, it’s never going to truly replace boots on the ground and checking it can save us some time. It can maybe give us some answers that we hadn’t really considered, but we’re having more problems from abroad, so we need to have a broader type of diagnosis to figure out the problem.  Looking ahead, what are some of the emerging trends and future projects and arboriculture that you’re excited about? How do you see these changes impacting the industry?

Evan Dackow: Now? You know, as far as future trends, you know, I think that the data collection via AI is going to be very interesting.  and just, you know, the more we’re refining and getting better at prescription level control on certain bugs, certain funguses, all these things, you know, that the fact that people can identify a bug, a fungus, a tree, you know, a lot of things, you know, via, you know, apps on their smartphone is fantastic, but a lot of it’s, you know, we’re also losing certain aspects, you know, which okay, cool. You know, you got to get the good with the bad, you know. But it’s interesting, you know,  you know, sonic tomography has been very, very big, you know, the ability to, you know, pass sound waves through wood.  And figure out what’s going on is, you know, absolutely, you know, amazing. So is that.

Mindy : Is that tool something that you have to hire a specialist to do? Or is that something that an arborist, if they had the technology, could do themselves with.

Evan Dackow: Some numbers can do. You know, it’s as simple as, you know, a one day class or a week class, you know, probably 2 or 3 days you could achieve, you know, true proficiency with it. You know, as a gentleman, not too far from it. I’m on Long Island, gentleman up in Westchester. That, you know, bought into tomography, which came out of Germany.  And you know, it has done a lot on a lot of, you know, old historic trees to figure out what’s really going on inside, you know, because you know, what is different and that you can’t just scan it, you can’t, it’s not a CT scan or something. You know, we have to take and interpret what we have there, which I is, for my understanding, a considerable amount to help differentiate between, you know, the sound wood and, you know, doing a risk assessment levels.  With it, you know, 20 years ago the fact that you could use a resistor graph and read the resistance of the wood, you know, with a tool is still amazing. You know, I still utilize it. Resistograph. It’s, you know, it’s a very useful tool, you know? But again, technology is not cheap, you know, Resistograph 7000. You know, it’s a, you know, sonic tomography equipment for $20,000.  Right. You know, it’s you know to get the good setups. But you know if you’re going to do this and commit yourself to it, you have to have all the tools right. You have to have access to the tools. 

Mindy : So why do you think there’s been this change, you know, 20 years ago. We just take the tree down and now you know we, that’s the last resort is to take the tree down. So why do you think is spurred this change in approach?

Evan Dackow: I think  the work of Doctor Shida because Doctor Shida, Shidao, you know, I don’t know how much you know about Doctor Shidao, but Doctor Shigao worked for the US Forest Service, and he did a tremendous amount of research into rot in trees. And, you know, he’s the one who stopped the guys from painting the wounds and from flush cutting and doing all these things because of his research, I think started in the 50s, 40s or 50s.  you know, I’m not exactly sure when, you know, when it started, but, you know, he came out and said, look, guys, what you’re doing, you’re doing it wrong. You know, you, you know, you don’t have to address this. If you do this, you’re going to cause this, you know, and just that falling down because we’re only talking about information that was published in the 70s. So we’re talking about 50 years to change an industry is not a tremendous amount of time, you know, and really, people have been taking trees down for a very long time, going back to double box. Double box in an ax.  you know, anything that’s wood that you had to take a tree down to get it, right?

Mindy : Right. I have painted many, many trees in the 70s with tar. And on the farm where we would prune a branch and, and we did that for years. And it didn’t change until I went to Purdue and was doing grafting and stuff. And they were like, no, you don’t do that anymore. And this is why. So yeah, so even my dad had some trees topped last year and, and we were doing some pruning and, and he wanted to get the tar. And I was like, no, don’t you remember? You don’t do that anymore. And this is why. And the reason, I mean, we could see it because it caused that tree to rot eventually and we lost the tree. So we learned our lesson about, you know, real world lessons. It wasn’t just,  you know, a scientist telling me not to do that.  so,  how do you think these innovations that we’ve talked about will affect the role of arborists and their work in the next 5 to 10 years? Do you think that some of this technology that’s so expensive is going to just become commonplace in the arborist?

Evan Dackow: Oh, yeah. You know, the other day I was walking around target. I had to pick up some stuff. And, you know, I’m walking around target, and technology always gets cheaper. You know, someone else figures out a better way to make it. You know that the first people, the first adopters, are always paying the most. You know, I remember one of my clients telling me that his cell phone bill was $1,000 a month, and the service stunk. You know, now, you know, I have you know, I’m paying a few hundred dollars for the entire company, for all the phones, the entire company.  you know, early adopters, they it always end up a little bit cheaper. You know what I was saying? I was in I was in target, and I’m looking at a 75 inch TV that’s now $500. A couple of years ago, that was 3000. 4000. You know, so, yeah, everything becomes a little cheaper. You know, the, you know, from the implements that we’re using to the technology we can utilize in our office. You know, we like the customer management software that we run has been able to streamline my secretary’s day substantially.

Evan Dackow: You know, it has all these things. She can notify all my clients for four roots in five minutes. That used to be a half a day to sit down and make phone calls all day. You know, you know, the applicators used to come back at the end of the day and they’d sit down. They make phone calls for an hour or two just to let their route know the next day that they’re coming.  You know I, we can I don’t I personally choose not to utilize it but my, my custom monitoring software would make these phone calls for me.  You know I’m a big person. I’m a big person on personal touch. I like being able to you know you speak to me. You speak to Lacey in my office. You know I like that you know. Hey these are the guys that come to your house. You get to know them. Develop a personal relationship. You know, that’s more of a business. You know your opinion. You know, business choice. Yeah.

Mindy : So do you see, like we have robots that will mow our grass for us.  do you see in the future, maybe ten years from now, you just being able to program a piece of equipment that will go out and prune this particular branch that you want pruned? So,  it would replace tree climbers or, you know, that type of approach. Do you see that coming in about ten years or not.

Evan Dackow: Maybe can might be more, but you know it. You know, you never know what AI is going to be able to develop, you know, but things like grapple saws, you know, have been able to keep guys out of hazardous trees.  You know the back in the day I remember, you know, you’d go if that tree’s hung up, you have to go in that tree to free it up. Now you know from log loaders to grapple saws. Guys can I was a guy that I knew. He, you know, he had a grapple saw, you know, here on the island And I’ve seen him sit on top of his clients house, reaching over the house, taking the tree, a tree down, going around, dropping it in the front yard. And he went from a five man crew to a two man crew or a three man crew. You know, it’s, you know, to eliminate a lot of labor and keeping people out of unsafe situations.  You know, because in a storm situation that’s what we’re doing is not, it’s not you know, not simple not safe. Right. Very often it’s calculated risk. But the ability to put a piece of equipment in there and take that out is huge. You know what. Whether or not you know we’re going to have drone pruning, I don’t, I don’t doubt it. You know, the battery technology alone has been quite considerable.  You know a lot of guys, their small limb saws, a lot of guys are going with battery limb saws, not because of mandates, but because they like the fact that they can communicate with their ground crew 40ft down, 50ft down. Because the source is silent as soon as I’m done. They like it. You know, it’s. I know guys who had to do it for certain job mandates. And then that became their lives. That was it.  You know, and it’s you know.

Mindy : I was talking.

Evan Dackow: To.

Mindy : I was talking to another gentleman and I’m in Indiana so.   I was not aware that cranes were actually being used in the industry, because I just don’t see that where I am in Indiana. And I was actually surprised that they were. I could see for like if, if someone was trying to plant a mature tree using a crane for that. But I was very surprised at how commonplace this this arboriculturalist was utilizing a crane.  and I, I was just flabbergasted by it. I was thinking of the cost and everything else, but he was talking about his dad was using a crane in the 70s, and that that was a way that they set themselves apart,  from the others. So it was just just strange to me. I just couldn’t envision, envision a crane and and pruning trees together.  Do you see? It’s just some people I’ve talked to. Do you see, I know in the past if you had an arboriculturalist come out to look at your trees on a residential property that was, you know, it was very expensive. And,  people who did that had some really valuable trees that they wanted to protect. So it really wasn’t unless you had a tornado or something like that that came through your area. Do you see this service being more for residential? You know, people who want to keep a nice landscaping or something like that? Or,  do you see tree care being more of the high end type of thing for people to in their landscaping?

Evan Dackow:  It’s for everybody. You know, if you have a tree, you know. Yeah. I always tell people you need to touch a tree every 3 to 5 years, and then you need to go through and prune it.  You know it’s going to happen a little more often. You know I’m from Long Island. We’re you know we’re, we’re a very strange bubble. You know the, the amount of wealth that exists on the island that I live on is tremendous. You know, I live, you know, I live in Long Island and there were billionaires who live within a mile of me. I’m. I’m not a man. I’m not a wealthy man. I, you know, I’m a trade guy, but you know that that concentration of wealth is here. You know that all the most of your really heavy duty guys from Wall Street, they live on Long Island. They’re here. They’re, you know, the head financial people. They’re here, you know, major corporations. They’re here. So, you know, Long Island I’ve always said is a is a very it’s a place unlike any other.  but, you know, whatever happens, you’re going to have a tree fall. It’s got to get taken care of. You know, where it sits in your priority list is up to you.  plant health care is one of two things. It’s either we’re coming in to deal with an issue. You know, I have a certain issue, and I’m going to come in and deal with it. We’ll be in there a year or two. Or we have clients who have been on the properties for 35 years because we’re viewed as maintenance. You know, that’s priority. That’s access to disposable income. You know that everybody’s oh, you know, well, I just want to make sure my azaleas look nice. Most people have the azaleas. Not like I’m just going to pop it out and put a new one.  You know but it comes down to you know people’s different priorities. Right. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

Mindy : Right. Well I and where I am I’m in southern Indiana and the tree care typically is um topping um or removal. You know, that’s, that’s that’s pretty much  the, the, you know, just of the tree care in my area. So hopefully we’ll start getting some of this,  because I used to have Colorado blues planted in my landscaping and I had I’m not a subdivision person. Never have been live in a subdivision now. But,  the concept of pouring your used motor oil on the root system of my Colorado blue and then telling me that motor oil doesn’t kill trees. I mean it up, huh? Anyway, it wasn’t funny at the time. I can laugh about it now, but, you know, we know what happens in my tree. And so, yeah,  that’s how much respect, at least in in my neck of the woods.  but tree trees have just a sad story, but,  hopefully things will start changing, you know? Yeah.  What steps in jolly green tree and shrub care are you taking to stay ahead of the trends and prepare for the future? So we’ve talked about AI. We’ve talked about some of the technology you’re using. Is there anything else,  you know, do you read up on, you know, new technology that it hasn’t hit your area of expertise yet or you just kind of wait for someone else to try it and then see if it is appropriate for you?

Evan Dackow: You know, I’m always trying to stay on top of what’s available, what’s around. But honestly, it’s it’s it’s attending education. You know, you know, a rising tide raises all ships. So, you know, again, you know, I’m in a population density area where we’re very lucky. I have tremendous access to education. You know, there’s multiple associations on Long Island, but Long Island Association, we have Long Island landscape contract association with professional certified applicators. Association of Long Island. We have different vendors we’ll put on educational seminars. The cooperative extension out here will put on different seminars. You know, there’s stuff through New York State Arborist which is an arm of the Isa. The International Society of Arboriculture. They put on several major events throughout the year, you know, so the access to education is where you do it, because it’s going to start in academia and it’s going to work its way down. You know, things, you know, always come from different places. You know, like I was talking about the airspace earlier. Airspace actually started out in the utility industry as a way to unearth and excavate out,  power cables without having to use heavy equipment.  When they were doing that, they realized that, oh, look, all the tree roots have also been left undisturbed. And that is now worked its way into here. You know people are utilizing it to  and transplanting trees to maintain more of a root zone. Less. So,  you know, there’s a lot of stuff I don’t know. I know, I think,  there’s a lot of stuff available to us,  for all sorts of things, you know, and that, that came from here, you know. But a lot of it’s going to come from academia. Okay. You know.

Mindy : All right. Um so okay so you sort of get your inspiration from academia.  yeah. Any other areas you get inspiration. I mean, I, I see the correlation between a because we have precision farming and you know, that drone use and and arboriculture is using very similar technology. Is there any other industry that you kind of keep your eye on as far as the technology that they’re using?

Evan Dackow: Everything, you know, a wise man learn from everybody. Okay. You know, it’s you keep your eye open and go, you know what? They’re what they’re doing. I can transfer to what I’m doing, you know? And, you know, it’s. You just got to keep your eyes open. You never know where inspiration is going to come from. Okay. All right. You know, MRI technology came from space.

Evan Dackow: You know, and now that’s you know I, I injured myself you know, last year and I had an MRI and I saw, you know, I talk about it. Neil deGrasse Tyson was talking about the fact that someone discovered it, you know, through a telescope.

Evan Dackow: Yeah. Who the hell who would think that one would go to the other.

Mindy : Right, right. Well that’s many, many years ago I, I’ve got drones myself and I use my drones for ag purposes. But I had done  a business competition for a wearable drone for farmers so that they could, because at the time, having a drone come out and fly over your field was very, very expensive. So the small farmers couldn’t afford it. But,  they had open,  open use Landsat. So the a wearable drone would work for a farmer, for a small farmer. And  but that technology, when I did the business competition, it it just went way over people’s heads and, you know, but,  just just that idea of that type of technology being used by the small farmer and now, you know, small farmers are using drones, they’re using, you know, all sorts of stuff. So I agree with you, different ideas from different disciplines and areas and science and is just percolating into different industries that we couldn’t even imagine.

Mindy : yes And it seems to speed up every year, you know. So which is a good thing, you know. Yeah.  But,  people just have to, to learn to accept it, because I’m, I’m beginning to see a divide between a we want I used, we don’t want I used and and some other things that I do. So there’s, there’s either people that are totally for it or totally against it and it’s here to stay. It’s not going anywhere so.

Evan Dackow: Oh, absolutely. You know, you, you have you have two choices, you know, keep growing or get left behind.

Evan Dackow: Right You know, that’s it. You know. And look, I, my father, 72 years old, I do not expect my father to start embracing, you know,  you know, AI technology by any means.

Evan Dackow: You know, the there’s a big thing with, you know, batteries have come into the industry, all that. And, you know, I was in a hearing one time and I said, at some point in my life, I will not own any equipment. That’s a fossil that’s run by fossil fuel.

Evan Dackow: Just won’t do it. You know. But again technology is is improving right. You know I remember someone gave my father probably 30 years ago a battery powered sprayer. You know, and it didn’t work. But you know what? That was the first guy to try it. And then the, you know, next, you know, people just keep improving and, you know, the simple thing, simple improvements. Like I was very early in getting the electric powered backpacks, battery powered backpacks. The first ones had the battery on the bottom unprotected. The next ones put it inside of a case that was sealed, and just moving the battery made all the difference in the world and how long that piece of equipment will last.

Evan Dackow: You know, but you know from the thing that my father got that was useless. You know, I remember we tried it and it really didn’t work well to that is now commonplace. And the guys aren’t tired anymore, you know, utilize technology in every aspect of your life, right?

Mindy : Well, I just recently did a product review for battery operated chainsaw, and I’m only five one, so, you know, I’m not extremely large person.  but I’ve used chainsaws my entire life and you know it. It’s got a kick to it for a person my size. And this one was just a little, little battery operated chainsaw, two hour battery life.  you know, it did what it was supposed to do. Didn’t have much of a kick to it.  You know, it was a wonderful saw. I thought for a small person or. I hate to say it this way, but for a woman who doesn’t, who can’t handle a full size chainsaw or doesn’t have one, they could use this chainsaw and prune their trees, or cut some small trees down and stuff like that. And I thought that was a wonderful technology because we didn’t have anything like that. You either. You either did it by hand, you did it with pruners, or you found somebody that had a full size chainsaw to take, you know, your saplings down and stuff like that. So, yeah, you know, it was it was great. I really enjoyed using it.  my only problem is I’m a small person and my hands are small and and trying to start that because it had a two button system. It I of course, I wore gloves for safety and etc. and I just couldn’t get that dang thing to fire with the gloves on. I could without them, but I my hands just weren’t big enough. But  I thought it was a great product. And so I my from my personal perspective, I’m seeing some things changing to give homeowners more ability to to do some more DIY without having this really big equipment and hiring professionals who can use that really big equipment if it’s required. So,  hopefully that trend will kind of continue going because it’s a pain trying to cut something with hand pruners.

Evan Dackow: So yeah.I laughed because, you know, I’m a girl and a friend of mine, friend who’s, you know, one of.

Evan Dackow: The Very early women in the agricultural industry, It was a joke because back in the day, when farmers worked for a tree company, she was her and the owner were the only ones who would run the big four foot chainsaw. All the guys were afraid of me. And, you know, it’s I’m the only boy of four kids, you know, you don’t limit yourself. You learn how to do it, you learn how to use it, you know? But yeah, look, older folks, you know, my father again, my father’s in the 70s. He’s not going to take an 80 steel out and cut a four. And, you know, you know, take the bottom cut on a tree anymore. I’m not going to happen. Right. He’s six foot two. He’s not a small man. But, you know, things change, right?

Evan Dackow: Right But, you know, even the simple technology on chainsaws of having, you know, some vibration dampening, you know, back in the day, or almost every tree guy had no feeling left in their hands from using the chainsaws because they were just direct and there was no vibration damper. Right. You know, simple stuff like that to, you know, now we have, you know, chainsaws that aren’t shaking, not not making you deaf anymore. You know, it’s, you know, everything changes incrementally or it takes leaps and bounds, right?

Mindy :  So yeah.You know, I was an only child. So. And was raised on a farm. So if it needed to be done, I had to do it. You know, it didn’t matter.  I mean, I’ve split wood. I’ve, you know, mowed the farm with a push mower. We didn’t have. We weren’t rich and we didn’t have a riding lawn mower. So yeah, you know, it is still preferred to mow grass with a push mower.  but you know, it built character and and all that stuff. But I really liked that small saw because. Yeah.  and it was battery powered. I didn’t have to worry about going down and getting gas or, you know, oil or, you know, I could just whip it out, go do what I needed to do and then put it up, charge the battery. And life was good. So, I mean, I thought it was a really smart move for, oh yeah, the urban environment that we live in. So this.

Evan Dackow: You know, my guy, you know, we do a lot of horticultural pruning over the winter. My guys have four chainsaws with four inch bars on them. When we’re doing some of the orchard pruning, because if you sit in there all day back and forth with a handsaw, you’re going to get tired.  But you know, the ability to go through and take these little cuts all day and not, you know, and not tire yourself out when you’re going to be, you’re going to be more on your game. At the end of the day, you’re gonna be making better cuts and better decisions because you’re not so physically tired, right.

Mindy : You know.

Mindy : And fewer mistakes. Yeah.

Evan Dackow: Fewer mistakes. And you know, you can work. You know what? We’re able to work nine hours versus eight hours. And you know you get more production out of the people.  You know, less logistics having to okay. Do we need to? It’s a four day job. But I was able to do it in three because we’re not so tired because we have that better resource available.  You know, and you also have a little more control in that they stop a little quicker. Right. You know it’s nice you know.

Mindy : You know technology is wonderful.

Mindy : It makes our life easier and safer. So for our listeners who are professionals in the field, what practical advice and best practices can you share? Let’s talk about common issues and effective solutions.

Mindy : Respect your clients.

Evan Dackow: On their time.

Mindy : Oh, okay.

Mindy : Yeah, that’s a good one.

Evan Dackow: You know, just if you’re running ten minutes late for an appointment, call them. Say, hey, I’m, you know, I’m running ten minutes late. I thought I’d be there at nine. I’m going to be here till nine, 15, nine, 20. Is that okay? You know, just the simple aspect of. Hey, you know, I’m a professional. My time is valuable. Your time is valuable.  You know, and that’s gone very far. And I’ve had clients tell me. Oh thank you Evan. You know what. Yeah I had to get going at 930 and it’s going to take 20 minutes. You know it’s going to take 20 minutes to walk around your yard. Okay. Well why do we both need to be in a rush, you know? Okay, cool. Hey. Because it happens, you know? Things happen. I’ve had to run out to bring a crew. Something. I’ve had to fix a tire. You know, I’ve run into traffic, you know, out of nowhere, you know, in the middle of the day. Oh, darn. There’s traffic here. And I didn’t expect it.

Mindy : So do you feel that that is one aspect that separates Jolly Green tree and shrub care from your competitors? Is that you are you are using AI and stuff like that, but you’re also still communicating. You know a real person is communicating with the customer. Do you think that sets you apart or is that just a, you know, a commonplace practice of your type?

Evan Dackow: I wish it was more commonplace practice. You know, I’m seeing a lot of younger people and that interpersonal interpersonal skills are kind of going by the wayside.

Mindy : Okay.

Evan Dackow: You know, and I hate to tell you, you know, this is civil service business. Anything you do is still a service business. You have to take care of your clients. Right.  you know, but keeping up on everything, you know, the, you know, we bought a customer management software and one of one and about five years ago. And that has made my life, and I’ve gotten a lot of time back in my life. My secretary has gotten a tremendous amount of time back in her day, you know, utilizing the technology that’s out there. You know, the fact that I can put all my clients on a map and see when I got a schedule, everything it can, it’ll tell me, hey, you haven’t been there in 22 days. That’s a 21. You’re supposed to be there every 21. Oh, okay. Cool. And I can get it to prompt me. Hey, if it’s been X amount of time since I’ve booked an appointment. Hey, put it in there. Get it in that so.

Mindy : So you think, in your opinion, it’s a there’s a fine line of continuing the conversation and and personal customer service and utilizing AI to organize your schedule.  you know, that type of thing, but not using AI to replace that personal touch? You think that’s very important?

Mindy : For me, it is very important.

Evan Dackow: You know, there’s certain people who, you know, I work for busy people I work for, you know, people who you know, they’re not. You know, what’s happening to the trees isn’t really a big aspect of their life. They just want everything to look nice, you know, And certain people you know will text you. We’ll email you, you will call you and let you know I’m coming. Certain people never want us to call because they they don’t have three minutes to get the phone call from the tree guy that they’re coming tomorrow when they’re not going to be home anyway. They leave the house at 7:00. They don’t get home till 8:00 at night. They don’t care what happened during the middle of the day. They just know that it’s taken care of. You know, everyone is going to adopt the way that works for them. You know, other coins, they want to know when we’re coming, what time we’re coming. You know, you know what trucks coming. What which one of my crew members is coming? Okay. You know.

Mindy : We’ll let you know.

Mindy : You adapt your strategy according to what the client needs.

Mindy : Yeah.

Mindy : Okay. All right. Well, Evan, it’s been fantastic having you on the show. Thank you so much for sharing your insights and expertise with us today. To our listeners, if you enjoyed this episode, be sure to follow Timber Talks the Art and Science of Arboriculture and subscribe for more in depth discussions about the industry and its experts. Until next time, keep growing and stay rooted in knowledge. So, do you have any questions for me, Evan?

Mindy : Not really.

Evan Dackow: You know, it’s just getting information out there, you know? It’s I’m on a lot of boards, and, you know, I like getting information out there to people.

Mindy : So you like to educate?

Evan Dackow: I enjoy it, I actually teach,  I teach I think it’s about 200 people a year to get their pass the site licenses.

Mindy : Oh, great.

Mindy : Great, great. Yeah.

Evan Dackow: I had to adopt something that I,  one of my mentors, passed away two weeks before the next scheduled class, and me and my friend Mark had to pick it up and teach the class, so.

Mindy : Yeah. Yeah, I’m.

Mindy : I’m with you getting the knowledge, getting the knowledge out there. And I think in my area people aren’t willing to listen. But in certain areas of the country, people are willing to listen and adapt some strategies for, you know, the betterment of everyone, not just, you know, their little postage stamp of property type of thing. So hopefully it’ll be heading in my area.

Evan Dackow: Yeah, you got to know your market. You know where, you know, you go outside of Chicago. There’s more people going to spend money on, you know, fine plan health care. You know where you are. And if you’re in a rural area, not a big deal to them.

Mindy :  I’m in an area whose solution is to take a tree down. Yeah. You know, and I’m like, no, you know, there’s other things we can do.  but that that is the that is the solution. Take the tree down. And I live in a subdivision in a city. So the more trees we take down, the hotter it’s going to get. I’m right across the river from Louisville, Kentucky. So.

Mindy : You know, I’m an Aggie, so I’m going. No, no, no, no.  yeah. I mean, I started a community garden in my community and nobody knew how to garden, so I had to I had to teach them how to garden.

Evan Dackow: I walked, I walked across the bridge that connects Louisville and Indiana.

Mindy : Oh, okay.

Evan Dackow: Yeah, it was down in,  I was in Louisville for the GI convention a number of years ago.

Mindy : Oh, okay. Well, it’s.

Evan Dackow: Always like, oh, if you go to the other side of that bridge, that’s Indiana. So me and my wife walked across the bridge, and Indiana.

Mindy : I’m the county you walked into is a county I was raised in. It’s called Floyd County, but I live in the county next, next to that. And,  it was a culture shock for me when I moved because when I was born, I lived in Louisville till I was five, and I don’t really remember that, but that was in like a subdivision. And then we moved to the country, and that’s what I call home. And so, yeah, I it was a big culture shock for me of how, um. Controlling people could be in the country. Nobody cares, you know, you just don’t care. And in an urban environment, they do care. And I I’ve had a lot of I continue to I’ve been here 34 years unfortunately, but I continue to learn the difference between rural and urban and the attitudes toward property rights, toward plant material, toward, you know, a bunch of a bunch of things. I used to have a garden and my neighbors would steal my produce. And I have an issue with that. I have a privacy fence, you know.  And I worked and they would steal my produce and nobody cared you know. Well we have the right. No, you don’t have the right. I don’t bother, I don’t, I don’t care what you do on your property. Don’t stick your nose in my business. On my property.

Evan Dackow: They would steal your produce.

Mindy : Yes, they would steal my. I had my dog shot. I had a Siberian Husky, and somebody stood up on a transformer box, aimed a pellet rifle over the privacy fence and shot my Siberian Husky 24 times, And it wasn’t an issue. And in the country it is an issue. You know, it is big.

Mindy : Issue for shooting.

Evan Dackow: Someone’s dog.

Mindy : Yeah, it’s a big issue if in the state of Indiana you can take an animal down if it’s causing property damage. But my dog was on my property, so, you know, if she was going to cause damage, it was.

Mindy : It was.

Evan Dackow: Your.

Mindy : Property.

Mindy : It was my property. And I mean just from kids standing on the transformer box and spitting on my kids. Well you know that’s not an issue. Well in the country, you know, that’s not going to happen if it happens and mom and dad find out about it, it’s going to be addressed. So it’s been a life lesson of living in this in this in an urban environment? Because I wasn’t memory doesn’t go back that far to remember the urban environment like that. But hopefully some things will start changing. I had to in the city I live in, it is against the law to have an invasive species that’s viewed an invasive species in the state of Indiana.  It’s against the law to have it in your landscape.

Mindy : Mm.

Mindy : Yeah. Yeah. So I had a thistle. I had a bull thistle that came up voluntarily, and I was growing up for a purpose because I write books and I’m an international author. And I needed a picture, so I was growing it for a purpose. And,  the city came around and tried to cite me for having an invasive species growing in my yard, and so I asked who the invasive species expert was, and I didn’t get an answer. But anyway, they the city had planted an invasive species beebalm. And in the state of Indiana, it’s labeled an invasive species in their landscaping. And I was like, you know,  okay, I’ll take my, my bull thistle down. You take your bourbon down because that’s an invasive species. So it’s just been an interesting, interesting time. But hopefully some of this, these new ideas of preserving trees and valuing trees. Oh.

Mindy : Oh, head.

Mindy : Over to my area.

Mindy : Hopefully.

Mindy : Well, I guess I will let you go, Evan.

Mindy : Alrighty.

Evan Dackow: Nice to meet you. Have fun.

Mindy : Have a nice day. You have a lot of tree trimming today.

Evan Dackow: We don’t trim trees. We just train them.

Mindy : Oh, okay. Do you have a lot of treatments for your.

Mindy : Yeah, I have.

Evan Dackow: All the crews are out this morning. Are out.

Mindy : Oh okay.

Mindy : All right. Well, talk to you later.

Mindy : All right. Bye bye.

Mindy : Bye.