Growth Rings, a New Book about Davey's History, is Published

Matt Fredmonsky, manager of corporate content at Davey, talks about Growth Rings, a new book about Davey's history and growth from 1962 to 2020. Matt, also author of Growth Rings, talks about what it was like to write the book and why it's important to Davey. 

In this episode we cover:  

• What is Growth Rings (0:45)
• The writing process (2:24)
• Why Growth Rings was written (3:15)
• How Davey became employee owned (4:25)
• How the Davey family reacted to employee ownership (10:00)
• What it means to be an employee owner (11:02)
• What it was like researching (12:02)
• How it felt to finish writing Growth Rings (13:42)
• Other milestones covered in Growth Rings (15:00)
• What you'll get out if reading Growth Ring (16:30)
• Where to get the book (17:06)

To find your local Davey office, check out our find a local office page to search by zip code.

To get your copy of Growth Rings, go to ShopDaveyTree.com.
To learn more about careers at Davey, go to Jobs.Davey.com.

Connect with Davey Tree on social media:
Twitter: @DaveyTree
Facebook: @DaveyTree
Instagram: @daveytree
YouTube: The Davey Tree Expert Company
LinkedIn: The Davey Tree Expert Company 

Connect with Doug Oster at www.dougoster.com. 

Have topics you'd like us to cover on the podcast? Email us at podcasts@davey.com. We want to hear from you!    

Transcript

Doug Oster: Welcome to the Davey tree expert companies podcast Talking Trees. I'm your host, Doug Oster. Each week, our expert arborist share advice on seasonal tree care, how to make your trees thrive, arborist's favorite trees, and much, much more. Tune in every Thursday to learn more, because here at The Talking Trees podcast, we know trees are the answer.

Well, I'm joined this week again by Matt Fredmonsky. He's the manager of corporate content for the Davey Tree Expert Company in beautiful Kent, Ohio. We are talking about something very special today a book called Growth Rings. Tell me what this is all about Matt.

Matt Fredmonsky: Hi, Doug. Growth Rings, as most people know, Davey is an employee-owned company and we have been for over 40 years. We're one of the largest employee-owned companies in North America and one of the oldest employee-owned firms, at least in the state of Ohio. Growth Rings tells the story of the events that transpired leading to the employee acquisition of Davey tree in 1979, which is when the employees bought the company from the Davey family.

The book is based on interviews with employees, retirees, folks who are involved in the operations of the company, including our most recent three Chief Executive Doug Cowan, Karl Warnke, and Pat Covey, who's our current CEO. I talked with members of the Davey family. We have recorded interviews with former employees and retirees in our archives that we pulled a lot of information from past company publications.

Then I did some pretty extensive research with several archival collections in Ohio. Growth Rings starts in 1962, and it spans from-- well, actually I think 1961, but really the significant events happened in '62 and it spans all the way to about 2020. It Chronicles leading up to the employee ownership acquisition, and then the success that the employees experienced after the acquisition in 1979.

Doug: Tell me a little bit about the research and the process and how long this took to put this all together.

Matt: I've been working on this project almost since I started at Davey. I started in April of 2014. I think I did the first interview with one of our retirees in October of 2015. The process has been about eight years or so from start to finish from then until today, when we have our finished actual book copies in hand. The writing itself probably took a couple of years, but all of the research, all the editing, finding photos, the internal review process, the entire process was that eight year span.

Doug: Why was this book written? When was this decision made and why was the decision made that this story had to be told?

Matt: Good question. Why I think is hard to answer, in a sense, just because we made that decision so long ago. It actually came up in my interview in 2014, when I was interviewed for the job to join Davey as a writer. Really, I think the purpose of the book, aside from detailing the modern history of Davey Tree, the goal is to tell the stories of the employees who have made this company such a huge success.

In that way, I think we're working to enrich and deepen our company culture because really, Davey has always been and continues to be a company focused on people. I hope that current and future generations of employees will read Growth Rings, and come away with an understanding that Davey is all about our people, whether they are employees, clients or our shareholders.

Doug: I know that employee ownership is a big deal just from doing this podcast and talking to different people in the company. Started in 1979, but why? How did that happen?

Matt: There's a fun anecdote that I don't think too many people know about how the decision to sell the company came to be. The book chronicles all of this, so I won't go into detail but the family, the Davey family had been struggling to find a consistent leader to serve in that President role long term. The most recent family member to serve as Company President was a guy named Alexander Smith.

He was married to have Evangeline Davey Smith, Evangeline is John Davey's granddaughter. She was involved in the company board for a period of time her brother, Martin L. Davey Jr., or Bob Davey was President of the company for I think, 16 years or so. Anyway, Al Smith call the meeting one Friday in November of 1977, with the company's management group, and this was unusual because at the time, the management group usually met on Mondays.

The employees knew that something was up. At this meeting, Al Smith made two announcements. The first one was that he announced that Jack Joy, who had been an employee since I think 1946, when he came back from World War II and started out dragging brush would become President of the company. Then the second announcement was that the Davey family was selling Davey tree.

What happened was that started this 18-month period where the employees formed a committee and they started exploring the possibility of buying the company as the employees from the Davey family. They started to seek legal advice and financial resources and guidance, and actually had to compete with other interested parties who were considering trying to buy the company from the Davey family.

This is where employee ownership came to be part of that process because they had to figure out how an ESOP or an Employee Stock Ownership Plan could help them finance essentially the purchase of the company as the employees.

Doug: It seems to me just so daunting for a group of employees to get together and again, like you said, competing against these other, I'm sure tree companies would love to own Davey. Do you know anything about that? Was it all like, "Okay, we're all in let's just do this?" Or was there just this period of like, "We're going to do what? How are we going to do--" Tell me a little bit about that process.

Matt: There's a whole chapter in the book that's dedicated to the employee ownership discussions and that entire 18-month period, but it was really a difficult time period for employees. There are many stories and company lore about how they made it happen, including some employees taking a second mortgage out on their house so that they could make a personal financial commitment in order to buy shares so that they could become an owner in the company.

Spouses who took a job, who maybe didn't have a job before in order to help supplement their personal income so that the employee could make that financial commitment. There were some employees who tried to make offers to buy their portions or their operations within the company. There were a lot of employees, good employees who just left Davey, and started their own business so they were directly competing with the employees who were in their market who were trying to buy the company from the Davey family.

Ultimately, what happened was as part of that employee stock ownership program, that was part of the original purchase agreement, there were 114 employees who made a significant financial commitment to become essentially those first employee shareholders to help make the purchase of the company a financial reality, and essentially financed the dollar amount that the family was satisfied with selling the company to the employees.

It was tough negotiations. There were other parties that made multiple offers to try and buy the company. Even Jack Joy, who was President at the time and served as head of the employee ownership committee, had hedged his bets and could've gone to work for a rival tree care company if for some reason, the employee purchase fell apart. There really are a lot of cool stories, not all of which are told in the book that revolve around that process.

A lot of Davey Canada employees were involved and they played a crucial role which we explain in the book. It really is a pretty fantastic story that led to this legacy employee ownership company.

Doug: Did the family-- were they excited that the employees, when it was said and done, were they excited that this team that they'd been working with all these years was going to actually be the employee-owned company? Were they excited about that?

Matt: Yes. The Davey family members really viewed the employees as the preferred buyers. They didn't want to see a competitor buy Davey Tree because they had a lot of pride in the company that for many of them, their great-grandfather, John Davey had founded and their name was on. They saw the employees as really probably the best bet to carry on the legacy and the company culture that John and other Davey family members had helped establish.

Doug: It actually worked out, didn't it?

Matt: We wouldn't be here if it didn't. That's for sure, and this book wouldn't be here if it didn't.

Doug: All right, fast forward to today, what does it mean for the employees to be an actual part owner of the company?

Matt: For me, it means a lot because as an employee-owner, we have a say in how the business is run. We own part of it. Just the way in which we take care of our equipment and we think about the decisions that we make having a broader impact on not just our colleagues, but our fellow employee-owners really helps strengthen that culture and that bond that we all share together and the fact that it's been so successful for so long because of the so many employee-owners who've come before us, I think really puts an onus on us to continue that legacy and do a good job every day.

Doug: Tell me a little bit for you personally, what it was like to uncover these stories. I know since we've talked before a couple of times that-- I know you're really into this and into the research part. Explain to people what it meant to you to discover these different stories.

Matt: It was fascinating. I've only been at Davey for nine years, but probably one of the coolest things I'll do in my career, to be honest, is just to learn about all the rich history that the company has and to be able to share that with employees and the general public, for me, means a lot. Having come from a journalism background before I started working at Davey, I just love telling stories and finding interesting stories to share with folks.

Whether it was digging in the archives and finding just cool little nuggets of information about somebody like Jack Joy or Bob Davey, who were heavily involved in the employee ownership acquisition, was just fascinating. It was like digging through treasure chests and finding these little coins. I got to spend a lot of time with our two most recent CEOs, Karl Warnke and Doug Cowan.

Doug, unfortunately, has passed since we started the book, but that was just a tremendous privilege to get to pick their brains and learn some of the history stories that they know and could share that a lot of other folks probably have never heard before. Just to be able to dig into that rich tapestry and then be able to share it with folks through the book has been an amazing experience.

Doug: Two questions. First, talk about the relief of finishing such a massive project but secondly, are there other feelings about having this book finally finished that like, now what? [laughs]

Matt: It is a relief because when you're writing something for so long and putting it together, it almost feels like this mountain that you're never going to reach the apex of. We finally got into the top, so it's a huge relief to get it done, but more so, I think it's exciting to have everything together in one place to share with employees so they can learn about this really rich history of not just Davey Tree, but also the employee ownership legacy, which I think is really important.

One of the stories that many a folk, including Doug Cowan, wanted to make sure that future generations of employees understood that employee ownership is here because so many-- and successful at Davey because so many employees before us worked so hard to make it that way. That's the exciting part for me is being able to share more of that employee ownership history with folks in Davey and within the green industry and just the employee ownership community as well.

Doug: Are there other milestones covered in the book that the company has accomplished?

Matt: Yes, there are a lot more than we could get into, but some of the interesting ones are-- so the Davey Tree Surgery Company, which was historically our Western operations, we brought them back into the fold through an acquisition in 1969, and we explained that. There's some really interesting stories about how Davey Tree Surgery Company came back to be a part of the bigger Davey company.

The evolution of our various service lines, so for example, residential, commercial services, how that came to be in the 1980s, the establishment of Davey Resource Group, which is one of our other service lines, our consulting division, how that happened in the 1990s. Some of the work that we did combating Dutch elm disease, Emerald ash borer, Asian long-horned beetle in the '90s and the early 2000s.

The recession in the '70s, how that impacted Davey and what we did to work through that, the East Coast blackout in the early 2000s, and the impact that had on our utility operations and the industry as a whole. We really tried to cover as much relevant company, green industry, and world history from 1961 to 2020 as we could fit in.

Doug: What do you want a regular person that buys this book, what do you want them to get out of this?

Matt: That's a good question. I think I'd have to go back to something I said earlier, which is that Davey is just really a people-centric company, whether that's our employees, or our clients, or our shareholders. We really work hard to make sure that all those people have a successful experience with Davey. I think the book reinforces that and is something that people will take away from it.

Doug: What's the best way for people to get the book?

Matt: Good question. There's a digital flip book that's available that I think you have the link to and hopefully, you'll be able to share that as part of the podcast. They can also order it on shopdaveytree.com. There's a Davey Books section. You can order it through there. It, I think, starts shipping on June 6th, which is John Davey's birthday. The price is, we think, reasonable at $18.80, which is a nod to our founding in 1880. Shopdaveytree.com is where you can buy it and then there's also the digital flipbook link people can access as well.

Doug: Matt, congratulations on such a massive and amazing historic project. Before I let you go, I want to talk to you and the listeners a little bit about both of our loves of history. This story, I had a dear garden friend who has since passed, gave me this box of old garden magazines because she knew I would treasure them. Again, like you, I just love looking back at the history.

After Matt and I talked the last time for the podcast, I went out and looked at those magazines. I don't know why. It's this big, giant garden magazine from the 1930s when I flipped over to the back of everyone, these magazines are the size of an old-life magazine. What's on the back but an ad for the Davey Tree Surgery Company. I've got maybe 50 of them. Matt and I have been talking about how I'm going to get those magazines to him because shipping them would cost of an arm and a leg.

I just thought that was such a fun story, Matt. I was so excited that you were interested in them. I can't wait to tell my friend's husband that these magazines that she kept for all these years will now be in the permanent Davey archives. Man, I'm telling you, that is awesome.

Matt: We have quite a collection, but we don't have a complete collection because Martin L. Davey Senior in particular, he was just really committed to our magazine advertising in the '30s and '40s, and then that carried through the '80s and even into the '90s, where we were on the back pages and inside pages of almost every national magazine related to anything landscape or tree care that you can imagine.

It's really fascinating to look at some of the old ads and see the ways that we talked about tree care and how in some ways, things haven't changed that much.

Doug: Matt, when I finally get these to you, which might be soon because I'm coming to Ohio in the next week or two, we'll have to get back together again and discuss these ads because man, it is cool stuff.

Matt: Yes, definitely.

Doug: All right, Matt, thanks again. Congratulations, and as always, great to talk to you, buddy.

Matt: Thanks, Doug. Take care.

Doug: Remember, you can get a copy of Growth Rings at shopdaveytree.com. Now tune in every Thursday to the Talking Trees Podcast from the Daveytree Expert Company. I'm your host, Doug Oster. Do me a favor, subscribe to the podcast so you'll never miss a show. Have an idea for the podcast or a comment? Send me an email to podcasts@davey.com. That's P-O-D-C-A-S-T-S@D-A-V-E-Y.com. As always we like to remind you on The Talking Trees Podcast, trees are the answer.

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