President's Perspective - Spring 2024

By Kevin Eckert on Monday, April 1, 2024

Arborists' Professional Responsibilities

In too many instances, many of my colleagues and I encounter arboriculture work, contract language, or advice that does not conform to recognized standards and best management practices (BMPs). In instances of visible violations, this is troubling and embarrassing for all true professionals. My experience finds that these issues are usually the result of a combination of factors. In some instances, ignorant, unqualified, and/or strong-willed clients or employers limit their arborist’s ability to do their professional best, leading to poor results. Others may push unqualified employees or service providers to do incorrect work because they have a specific vision or result that they believe will be accomplished by improper practices. In other, more extreme cases, it may be arrogant and/or unscrupulous individuals with a personal agenda that causes them to demand work that meets their uneducated standard. And there are various reasons in between. In fact, the reason doesn’t matter. Damage is done to trees and sometimes property, injury risk may be elevated, and your industry reputation suffers.

In my opinion, the over-riding root cause of this issue is that there are not adequate qualifications required or enforced by many clients or government agencies for the appropriate use of qualified, professional arborists to provide key services and/or performance in conformance with recognized standards and BMPs. I believe that there are too many pretenders within our industry who do not possess the education, training, or experience required, but still hold decision-making positions that results in inappropriate work.

A secondary, but strongly contributing factor is what I see as a pervasive lack of professionalism within our industry. Many of us feel that our industry does not get much respect and an argument could be made that we don’t deserve it due to a lack of effective public education and little to no vocal push-back by professionals and our organizations on violations of standards and BMPs.

One of my pet peeves that illustrates this lack of professionalism, also preached by Dr. Shigo, is that many in our industry don’t use the correct, professional terminology and language as do other respected trades and professions.

To help guide our efforts, the ISA has established a Code of Ethics that serves as a blueprint for arboricultural professionals and establishes behavior standards in various aspects of the profession. The ISA code of ethics requires that arboriculture professionals maintain and promote high standards of conduct. This requires that we always act with integrity, competence, diligence, and honesty, striving to meet the goals and obligations of our profession as described within recognized standards and BMPs.

Professional arborists must ensure that all practitioners avoid compromising our profession's scientific and technical expertise by adopting professional language and terms, and taking stronger, more public stands when faced with demands for nonconforming work and observations of violations. We must provide a level of policing, supported by the ISA, when we observe others in violation. More voices in unison among us and in the public forum should be much more effective.

We can also better address this issue when we are directly confronted by conflicts between our professional obligations and the interests or sometimes unreasonable or incorrect demands of clients or employers. Professional duty sometimes requires arborists to refuse work that violates standards and BMPs, or make decisions and recommendations that may conflict with the client/employer’s request/requirement or their most convenient or cost-effective preference. We must actively and vocally resist the belief that we only need to be advocates, rather than experts. We must actively avoid providing information or services that we know do not conform with recognized industry standards and BMPs to satisfy our client/employer.

To better serve ourselves and our profession when confronted with these conflicts, I believe that it is critical for each of us to make a strong, courageous stand that recognizes that our professional duty is to be an expert in all cases. In one example, those of you who have gone through my TRAQ course have heard my strong admonition that your role as an assessor is as an expert, not an advocate. When serving as a tree risk assessor, you have duty to restrict yourself to the facts and findings to produce a reliable risk rating. In fact, this duty extends to all your services as a qualified, professional arborist.

To sharpen this concept, it is important to ensure that we must always be in reasonable conformance with recognized standards and BMPs in accordance with our standard of care. Standard of care is defined as the degree of care a prudent and reasonable person would exercise under the circumstances based on that person’s education, training, and experience.

Where questions, disagreements, and disputes are anticipated, we should proactively provide effective education to clients and stakeholders regarding our specific duty toward standards and BMPs applicable to the project and how that benefits them and their trees.

Active, visible displays of professionalism and strong stances against violations of standards and BMPs play a crucial role in shaping the reputation and credibility of individuals, organizations, and our industry. By adhering to professional standards and standing against violations of recognized BMPs, arborists demonstrate their commitment to integrity, honesty, and accountability in their professional endeavors. This not only fosters trust among colleagues, clients, and stakeholders, but also enhances individual and industry reputation as reliable and principled professionals.

We are members of a profession that requires a high level of knowledge, skill, and artistry, to do correctly and proficiently. This fact is largely unrecognized outside our industry. No doubt in my mind, if we increase our efforts to speak to our expert qualifications and actively stand against those violations of professionalism, we and our clients will all be better served and we will receive the consideration and respect truly deserved.

I ask all of us to consider our professionalism and aspiration for unequivocal recognition as true, respected professionals.

Cultivating Competence is the theme of the 2024 WCISA Annual Conference (San Diego, April 29 – May 2), which provides a great opportunity to continue the conversation on professionalism. Please join me in stepping up in a leadership capacity to ensure that we understand the challenges and work together toward solutions to enable us all to consistently demonstrate and drive professional, ethical behavior.

Aloha,

Kevin Eckert, WCISA President