How Davey Women Support Others

Audrey Sellepack, pesticide compliance specialist at the Davey Institute, and Anne Embrey, organizational change management specialist, talk about their experiences as women in the green industry and their involvement with Davey's Women+ affinity group. 

In this episode we cover:  

• What is a pesticide compliance specialist? (00:53)
• What an organizational change management specialist does (1:42)
• Anne's green industry journey (2:30)
• Audrey's green industry journey (3:15)
• Davey's women population (4:57)
• Being the only woman in an office (6:12)
• Davey's Women+ group (7:24)
• The importance of supporting women in the workplace (10:36)
• Topics the Womens+ group covers (12:24)
• What members get out of being in the group (14:47)
• Advice for women in the green industry (17:00)

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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 Company's podcast, Talking Trees. I'm your host, Doug Oster. Each week, our expert arborists share advice on seasonal tree care, how to make your trees thrive, arborists' 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. This week, we have a very special episode about how Davey women support others. When this podcast drops, the next day is International Women's Day. I am joined by Audrey Sellepack. She is a pesticide compliance specialist with the Davey Institute in Buffalo, right, Audrey?

Audrey Sellepack: Yes, based in Buffalo.

Doug Oster: Anne Embrey, an organizational change management specialist based in North Carolina. I want to start off, just tell me a little bit about your job. Audrey, what does that mean, pesticide compliance specialist?

Audrey Sellepack: Basically, my job is to help make sure all of our offices are complying with state and federal pesticide regulations. I started off as a plant healthcare tech in the field at the Rochester residential office. After that, I got promoted to this position. I love using my field experience as a way to relate to the plant healthcare techs and other pesticide applicators out in the field. It gives me some street cred, so I'm not going into an office and they're thinking, "Who the heck is this person trying to tell them what to do?" I've been there, I understand. Yes, I try to encourage safe and effective pesticide use. Yes, that's a bit about my job.

Doug Oster: Anne, what does an organizational change management specialist do?

Anne Embrey: We're on the people side of change. When changes happen with technology, we have a great crew of people who are making sure the systems work, fantastic. Our job in change management is to help the people adopt the change in a positive way. Change is hard. Initial resistance is not unusual and actually welcome because we want people to work through, here's the current state, here's the future state. How do we get there? It's really neat. It's something that I'm very passionate about. Prior to Davey, I've been in retail my whole career, really empathizing with those end users. I'm so delighted to be part of Davey to help impact in a positive way those end users.

Doug Oster: How did you make that transition into the green industry and why?

Anne Embrey: I was looking for something to use my change management skills. I'm originally from Columbus, Ohio. When I saw a job at Davey and I saw, "Oh, it's Ohio-based and employee-owned," I thought I need to apply. Plus I've been on the board for our local pool and we use Davey Tree to manage our canopy. Our pool is known as the only pool in Greensboro that still has its original canopy. Davey has helped make that happen. When I saw the job, I was like, "This is great. Now I can take my passion and join it in with an industry that I believe very strongly in." It's a good match.

Doug Oster: Audrey, tell me a little bit more about your journey into the green industry.

Audrey Sellepack: I went to the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry up in Syracuse, New York. My career path at that point was very different from what it is currently. I actually wanted to be a marine biologist. I was studying some really tiny snails that are native to Micronesia. I was really gung ho about scuba diving for a living and exploring coral reefs. I realized that doing that would require me to go to grad school. At that point, I was so burnt out. I was ready to explore a new career. I went to a career fair and discovered Davey Tree.

At that point, I was a teaching assistant for my dendrology class. I was really good at teaching people how to identify trees. I figured that it would be a good way to go into the green industry. If I can identify a tree, at least I know what I'm treating. That was what I decided to do after that. I applied for a job at the closest Davey office at the time, and that happened to be Rochester. Then I started that in June of 2018 and have not left Davey since. I've been here for a little over five years, and they say that that's the mark where if you're there for five years, you're there forever. I guess I'm at Davey Tree until I retire.

Doug Oster: For both of you, is it mostly men that you're working with?

Anne Embrey: My immediate team that I work with, it's all women, but we work with the IT team, which is-- actually, it was one of the things when I first joined Davey that I was impressed with. There were so many women in IT, but because the solutions we're delivering are going out to the field, the people that we work with on the end user end, they're mostly male. Yes, go ahead, Audrey.

Audrey Sellepack: Yes, and I guess my team right now is actually also pretty women-dominated, but when I started off as a plant healthcare technician, I was the only non-office woman employee working for that office. There were a couple of women who filtered in and out, but we were definitely a minority in that situation. Currently, I work in the environmental health and safety field, which is still roughly male-dominated as a part of our industry, but there's definitely women coming through the cracks. I just like to use that experience, though, of being the only woman at my office to help those people who are feeling the same way.

Doug Oster: Audrey, what was it like to be the only woman in the office?

Audrey Sellepack: It was a little frightening at first. I definitely felt like I was being singled out sometimes. You get comments sometimes that you just learn to brush off, and you know that they all mean well when it happens. At the same time, I felt like I had a lot of support at that office. There was a plant healthcare tech who was there at the time who now got promoted to a sales position, and I'm still very close to. He was my counterpart plant healthcare tech and my partner in crime. He was a great person who provided a lot of support at that office.

I feel like if he wasn't there giving me a hand whenever I needed it, I wouldn't be in this industry today. I would say for offices like that where you are the only woman, seek out your allies because they're there, and they're always happy to provide support regardless of what gender you are.

Doug Oster: Let's talk a little bit about this group, the Davey Women's Plus group that you guys started. How did it begin?

Audrey Sellepack: I actually started the group back in 2021. As I mentioned, I came from being the only woman at my office, and I wanted to use my current position at corporate to provide a safe space for those women to be able to connect. That's how the group started. I just reached out to a couple of people who I knew through Davey and said I wanted to start this group. It started off with about 5 or 10 people at each meeting monthly, and it spread via word of mouth very organically.

It took a while for the group to get off the ground, but when it did, it exploded. HR took notice of it and said, "Hey, this is a really cool idea. Let's start getting some other affinity groups involved." Then I really needed a co-champion, so that's when Anne joined the group. Yes, Anne, do you want to talk about your experience of hopping on?

Anne Embrey: Sure. I had seen on our internal communicator, Davey Connect, a post about an employee affinity group, and they were looking for participants and leaders. I filled out an application about why I wanted to be part of it. I interviewed with people in HR, and then they were like, "You need to talk to Audrey." At the time I thought I was just going to talk to Audrey to find out about the group, because I had never heard of it. Audrey and I get on a call. She's like, "Thank you for being my co-champion." I was like, "Oh, yes."

The reason I wanted to be part of it-- before I knew about the group, which was already in existence, I had noticed in many meetings that some women were being talked over. They were qualifying their words a lot. They weren't getting heard. I felt like there's got to be a way to help women when they're working with mostly men to feel that strength, that they are on equal footing. That was my main driver for wanting to be part of the Women's Plus group. I was so glad, actually, to become her co-champion. It was a year ago, February 2023.

Audrey Sellepack: Oh, yes. Yes, about a year.

Doug Oster: How often do you meet, and is it through the computer? Is that how it's done, like Zoom or meetings or something like that?

Audrey Sellepack: Yes, we meet once a month, usually the first week of the month. Yes, we meet through Microsoft Teams because, as we're a nationwide company, so it's the best way to get everybody to connect. We meet at 7:30 Eastern time to accommodate for people who work out in the field and don't get home until a certain time. We want to make sure those people can make it to our meetings, too. We like to accommodate for our West Coasters as well, so we thought that was a good time to do it.

Doug Oster: Let's talk a little bit about the importance of supporting other women at Davey in the industry.

Anne Embrey: Yes, I think, Audrey spoke very about how it feels to be the only woman in the office, but also when I think about my role at corporate, which is all I've ever been, you feel like you want to be empathetic to people in the field, which again are mostly men. Working with other women in this network, you can find ways to better connect with people in the field, to understand, to help see what their issues are. In the Women's Plus group, we talk a lot about what are the women facing? What are their obstacles? How can we help them? Then for my job in change management, trying to find out how does everybody feel and what is it like to work out there? It's been really helpful for me to do that.

Audrey Sellepack: To touch on that too, we do allow allies to come to our meetings as well if they don't identify as Women Plus. A lot of our allies, they come from a background where they're ops managers or they're managing teams that have women on them. They're looking to better understand how they can manage teams of women and uplift them. It's really nice to have a good balance of men who are looking for ways they can support women and women that are talking about their issues and things they can do. We're just figuring out a way to make Davey a great place to work for everybody.

Doug Oster: That's really fascinating that you're, I don't know if the word's allowing, but that you're including. It's an inclusive group. That's really cool. Talk a little bit about the topics that you guys are discussing. That's really interesting.

Anne Embrey: We just did-- the February meeting was about conflict management. That was really one of our most participative meetings. People were very interested to know, again, "I'm the only woman in the field and this is the way I'm being treated. What do I do?" It was amazing, Doug, because having other women who've experienced that come in and speak during the meeting, "This is what I've done. This is how you can navigate through it or who you need to contact for further support." Conflict management was our most recent meeting. I'll let Audrey talk about some of our other meetings.

Audrey Sellepack: Yes. We've had quite a variety of different topics. We've even had non-women's issues, specific topics. We had one person come on and talk about pollinators and their benefits to the landscape. We've had that stuff. We had a really moving talk about raising young families in the green industry and being a woman and a mother who's working. We actually have a follow-up for that coming up in May. I'm really excited to do another version of that same topic.

Let's see, what else? We've had talks on confidence and how to be confident in yourself. We've also had some great allyship meetings as well, where we've had panels of either ally managers, or we've also done one where it was a panel of just women in the field. We would just ask questions about how allies to Women Plus could better support them. Yes, those were also very well-attended meetings. I think everybody took something from those to figure out ways we could better support women in the field.

Anne Embrey: We start each year with a meeting asking people, what do you want to talk about? We have a list of topics, but then we want to know what is really on the top of everyone's minds. Then we go out and find speakers and go from there.

Doug Oster: For both of you, tell me a little bit about what you get out of doing this, of being part of the Women Plus group.

Anne Embrey: For me, I'm the only fully remote person on my team. Then I'm also the only person that doesn't live in Ohio on my team. From this group, I really get that connection to Davey. I'm interacting with people all across the country who do all different kinds of jobs. It's fascinating for me. It's a really great way for me to learn the culture at Davey, how people interact, more about the green industry, what women face. It's been a lifeline for me in my role to have this group every month. I've started to make friends with people, communicating with them. It's been really lovely.

Doug Oster: Audrey?

Audrey Sellepack: I agree. I actually am also the only remote employee who lives outside of Ohio on my team as well. I think, yes, it's great for that reason. Yes, and I agree. It's a great networking opportunity. I feel like this group has made me a lot more well-connected with the Davey company. I like to use it to my advantage to help others. If people are saying, "Okay, I need this done," and I have no clue who to talk to, it's really nice to be able to say, "Oh, here's this awesome woman who I've met through this group who can help you with your very problem that you're trying to solve."

I really enjoy being able to connect people with each other and also be able to network with other Women Plus in the company. We have a lot of Women Plus who come to the calls regularly who are operations managers, VPs, who all provide support for this group. It's great having them as mentors for myself, but also for the other members. Yes, I think it's a great way for those people to feel like they could eventually grow a career and become those VPs and those ops managers.

Doug Oster: That leads me to my next question for both of you is what advice do you have for other women in the industry or women considering coming into the green industry as a career?

Audrey Sellepack: I guess my advice would be to ask questions and be confident in yourself because you have so many amazing ideas to contribute. Just because you might be the only woman at your office doesn't mean you're not valued. You've got to help pave the way for those other women to also take a seat at the table. I would say it's hard to find allies in people who aren't women, but you can find them out there. They are at every office, I promise. Just make sure you're connecting yourself with the right people, get the right confidence, and if you're not finding those people at your office, you'll find them at Davey. There's 10,000 plus employees, and we're always happy to get you connected to the right people.

Anne Embrey: Yes, I agree 100% with what Audrey's saying. I also find, like if you're within Davey and you're feeling like I need to connect with people, LinkedIn, the Davey Tree LinkedIn page is phenomenal because they showcase people all across the company. It's a great way to learn and see what other people are doing. For people, for women who are considering joining the green industry and maybe a little intimidated by all the men around, I again, recommend follow us on social media because you'll see how many phenomenal women are out there in the field, in their boots, up to their knees, in the water, working in the right of ways, whatever they're doing, up in trees.

It makes you feel like anything is possible when you look at that story that's created. Then, again, when you're in Davey, just like Audrey said, find someone who you can connect with, who maybe isn't on your team directly, who has it, but has a similar path. That's a really good way to feel like I can make it. I can do anything.

Doug Oster: Anne and Audrey, I'm going to leave it right there. That is some great stuff and fascinating. Hey, good for you guys, what you're doing. I think it's really awesome. Thanks again for your time. I'm sure we'll talk again in the future. Thanks.

Anne Embrey: Thank you.

Audrey Sellepack: Thanks so much for having us, Doug.

Doug Oster: I just wanted to send another shout-out to Audrey and Anne because it is so important to have these discussions. It's one of the reasons I'm so proud to host this podcast for Davey. Now tune in every Thursday to the Talking Trees podcast from the Davey Tree Expert Company. I am your host, Doug Oster, and do me a big favor. Subscribe to the podcast. You'll never miss another episode like this great one we had today. Have an idea for a show or maybe a comment? Send us 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'd like to remind you on the Talking Trees podcast, trees are the answer.

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