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Editor’s note: Building the Valley tells stories of businesses big and small and the employees who make them special. If you know of any standout employees, bosses or companies with a great story to tell, contact reporter Madasyn Lee at [email protected]
B.J. Schaltenbrand recalls the time BeaverJack Tree Service received a request that was out of the ordinary.
A woman from Pittsburgh called the Harrison-based company because her parrot had flown 50 feet up into a tree, and she needed help getting it down.
“She was in panic. (She said) ‘I can’t get the firefighters. I can’t get anybody here. I need to get this parrot down. He means so much to me,’ ” said Schaltenbrand, who owns the tree and landscape maintenance company.
Schaltenbrand contacted one of his climbers — the employees who climb trees to maintain them — with a new assignment: rescue the parrot.
“He’s like, ‘Whatever it takes. Let’s go,’ ” Schaltenbrand said of the employee, who rescued the bird and reunited it with its owner. “I think that that was one of the most extraordinary calls that we’ve ever received.”
For the past nine years, BeaverJack has provided tree removal, tree trimming, stump grinding, storm cleanup, land clearing, mulching, landscaping and other services to residential, commercial, municipal, educational, health care and historic properties throughout Western Pennsylvania.
Among its list of clientele is Harrison, for whom the company has set up and decorated a giant Christmas tree for the past four years. It does that job for free.
“The guys every year ask me, ‘Hey, are we going to do that Christmas tree again?’ ” Schaltenbrand said of his tree trimming crew. “It’s heartfelt. They really care about the community.”
Schaltenbrand said a misconception about tree trimmers is they’re rough, ragged, burly and uncaring.
“Whenever we’re giving back to the community, these guys that are here, on this team, they get excited about it,” Schaltenbrand said.
BeaverJack has 13 employees. Of those, four are climbers who use chainsaws and handsaws to cut or trim trees and their branches. Handling that equipment while up in a tree can be dangerous, and the company works hard to maintain safety.
Years ago, tree trimmers didn’t wear hardhats and barely used safety lines, Schaltenbrand said. That’s all changed.
“It used to be it was just a guy in his pickup truck. No hardhat, no personal protective equipment,” Schaltenbrand said. “We went from that to now people are wearing hardhats, chaps, gloves. We’re doing safety meetings now three times a week. They’re building a culture of safety as opposed to being those rough, burly guys that say, ‘I can take anything down.’ ”
The company holds Monday meetings where the employees talk about dangerous situations they may have experienced in the past week or during their time in the industry.
Schaltenbrand said those meetings not only help employees learn, but strengthen the camaraderie among them.
“It’s hard to tell people when you make a mistake, and whenever you make that mistake you kind of want to hide it and not share it with anybody,” said Schaltenbrand, 37, of Allegheny Township. “I think by sharing this stuff now they’ve come to a point where they understand that they’re helping other people.”
William Quinn, one of the company’s climbers, said he likes his job because every day is different.
“Every day (is) a challenge. It’s always different scenarios, trying to find the safest, most efficient way to tackle the job,” said Quinn, 30, of Parks Township. “That’s what gets me up every morning to continue doing what I do. I love problem-solving and thinking outside of the box, gathering input from the guys and coming up with the best plan we can.
“You never do the same tree twice.”
The company typically deals with trees that are between 25 to 110 feet tall.
Schaltenbrand said the lower a climber can stay in a tree, the safer they’re going to be. But they usually have to get relatively high. A typical working height for a climber is 60 to 80 feet.
“If we have an amateur, or what they call a greenhorn, in the tree, we try to put them in a smaller one, maybe a smaller pine tree, maybe a smaller maple, to get them adjusted to the height,” Schaltenbrand said. “Staying safe in the tree is one of the biggest things.”
Madasyn Lee is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Madasyn at [email protected], 724-226-4702 or via Twitter.
Louis B. Ruediger | Tribune-Review
BeaverJack Tree Service crew leader Will Quinn works in a tree Dec. 3 in New Kensington during a recent removal project.
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