We are celebrating 50 years of KTS caring for residential and commercial properties. We started the traditional way with a rope, chainsaw and truck. My brother and I were 3 and 4 years old when this journey began. We both decided to join KTS as full-time employees in the late 80’s.
So here we go, Jeff and I were obviously very young (fresh out of high school) and eager to learn and develop our careers. At the time there was no professional training available for the tree care industry, you simply learned from your leaders who learned from their leaders, and this was the way for generations. Not the best way to learn as some great arborists are not always great trainers. In this industry like many others, you need to learn from experience as there is no book that can teach you about every tree as every tree and property are different. Learning from experience is a skill that can make you improve upon success and failures. You simply need to discuss those successes and failures with your crew. Learning from experience is still a fundamental way of learning and cannot be replaced.
In the early 90’s my brother and I started getting involved in tree climbing competitions. At the time, this was the only form of training other than on the job and we all learned from each other on different tools and techniques.
Mid 90’s roll around and more formal training became available, and we were eager to go, and we did. We learned so much while not solely learning from experience, but we also learned from professional trainers which went a long way as our performance increased and was becoming repeatable.
When I started my career at KTS there were two generations, Baby Boomers and Gen X and we all had different ways of
learning, the biggest way was learning from experience with very little of “why”. Why meaning that if you explain the “why” first, people may be better to change their behavior to have a more positive outcome of their decisions because they know the “why”.
Training has changed over the past 50 years. At KTS we now have 3 generations at work, Gen X, Millennials and Gen Z. Each generation learns differently. We at KTS have identified training opportunities for all involved, that could be tree pest and disease diagnostics, human resources, climbing, rigging, equipment operation, plant health care, safety, leadership as well as fabrication and equipment maintenance. Over the past 5 decades we have understood the importance of training and the importance of continual improvement, while all along understanding that we all learn differently.