At a young age, Dan Mayer turned his interest in all things arboriculture into a job harvesting firewood. After time with the Coast Guard and earning his bachelor’s degree, Mayer returned to the tree-care industry, starting his own company — Mayer Tree Service.
The roots of Mayer’s affinity for tree care date back 30 years, but the current business has been in existence for 17 years. “My motto has been to build a company that I like to work at. I like doing tree work, so I built a company that lets me still go out in the field and do that,” Mayer says.
Mayer Tree Service employs 50 people, some who have been around since the earliest days of the business. The company serves clients across the tree-care spectrum, including the residential, commercial and municipal markets. As Mayer describes it, “as long as there’s a tree involved, we’re involved.”
The trust Mayer has in his workers has helped him retain employees and keep company morale high.
“I give a lot of responsibility to the guys and let them make decisions. I think it makes it easy for people to work here; we trust in our employees to make decisions and I’m proud of everyone working here,” Mayer says.
With this corps of workers, Mayer has made a point to provide them with the best tools for their tasks. He turns to Vermeer for his most demanding jobs and estimates he uses over 20 Vermeer machines.
“They function well and are just well-engineered machines. Primarily, the support behind them was really important to us. Labor is the most expensive piece of the equation, so having our machines operating at peak performance is critical to our business,” Mayer says.
Mayer takes pride in being meticulous and using machinery that fits into his business approach. One area of focus is waste reduction. To do this, Mayer ships trees to New Hampshire for wood recycling, where they are converted to firewood, mulch or wood chips for biomass. Additionally, they break down and screen soil to make loam.
The demands of the forestry industry have pulled Mayer Tree Service from its home base in Massachusetts. Crews have helped in Central Park following Super Storm Sandy and in the gulf region after Hurricane Katrina; furthermore, they have also taken on jobs in Tennessee and Florida.
Mayer Tree Service is the prime example of what can be achieved in the tree-care industry when passion, people and performance come together.