Utility vegetation management is – at its core – about preventing power outages due to trees. We have professionals working on thousands of miles per year carefully pruning each tree that could grow into the lines over the course of our five-year maintenance cycle. We also inspect thousands of trees for decay and proactively remove those trees on a cycle as well. This work prevents power outages to our member-owners. However, how we go about this work is what makes me proud.
We hire the best and brightest professionals to manage this work, to explain to our members the why behind what we do. These are degreed, experienced foresters and arborists certified by an International Society of Arboriculture rigorous testing process. We partner with leading vendors in the industry who understand that we want the very personal experience of having trucks and arboricultural professionals on their property and pruning their trees to be outstandingly positive from end to end. We work with our public relations department to educate our member-owners, not just about the work that needs to happen, but about wonderful side benefits of our professionally managed rights of ways such as habitat for pollinators and birds and other wildlife. We plant trees with children every Arbor Day and we even give trees to our members to encourage them to reap the myriad of benefits we all gain from trees. The work we do matters, and that makes me proud.