Get To Know Leaf & Limb: Meet Kelly

In this installment of Get to Know Leaf & Limb, Nora sits down with Kelly, a Leaf & Limb team captain and one of our most experienced crew leaders in Operations. They discuss what keeps Kelly lacing up his boots daily and where he finds new joy on the job every day. And he shares a hairy story that makes us believe in guardian angels.

Nora: Dive right in Kelly and introduce yourself.

Kelly: Hello, everybody. I’m Kelly. I’ve been at Leaf & Limb for nine years, but I'm guessing I’ve been in this business about 36 or 37 years. That's a lifetime, yes, it seems like a lifetime.

I love classic movies, mostly westerns. I'm a big John Wayne fan. I sew in my spare time; automobile upholstery and things like that. Everyone at work knows I have a thing for classic Chevy trucks and enormous peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

How did you end up at Leaf & Limb?

My wife and I were looking to leave northern Virginia and settle in a less congested part of the country. I had a lifelong friend who lived down here in Raleigh, so this is where we headed.

Luckily, I applied for and got a job at Leaf & Limb, and I’ve been here ever since.

What do you do at Leaf & Limb?

All of it. Climbing, running crews, rigging, and other kinds of things too. Basically, whatever we do at Leaf & Limb, I’ve done it… I do it.

I know you well enough, and I also get the feeling because of your long history and expertise in the industry that you actually really like teaching people stuff. Oh, I think that's your “bag.” You’re a natural teacher.

Yeah, I love to share my knowledge, and I really enjoy watching people succeed. When you have people that are new to the industry, and you teach them what you know and you watch them become self-sufficient at climbing and organization and job site strategies and things. And you just see those successes continue to build. That's a strong “get” for me. I love that. I love watching people mature in this job.

What's your favorite thing about Leaf & Limb?

I would have to say the camaraderie. Especially the teamwork. When the team comes together it’s almost like a ballet, a ballet with chainsaws, because everything and nothing is done without grace, you know.

Say you’re getting limbs out over a house. You work out a plan, with the roping crew and the climber. And then the plan goes into action and when it’s good it's like an engine that's just hitting on all cylinders. A good climber is smooth and moves through the tree fluidly and the rope crew reads the play and knows the moves.

This sense of accomplishment at the end of a job like that is really something. As tree climbers, we go out on a daily basis, and we do something that far less than one percent of the world's population is ever going to experience.

You know those team building exercises that corporations sometimes have? I don’t mean to put any of that stuff down, but they go out for one day and everybody's like yeah, we're pumped about this. Well, we do it every freaking day.

What's the funniest or weirdest thing that's ever happened on a job?

Oh boy! I might have to think about that one. There’s been a lot in 37 years.

Weirdest thing that's ever happened to me was early in my career. As a climber, I was working for a tree service up in Baltimore. And we were working behind this church taking down some trees because they had some construction coming up. I was climbing these trees and cutting the tops off, putting a rope in them and then coming back down. And at lunchtime my foreman says to stop for a bit. But I was keen and wanted to keep going and finish the last one. Anyway, he decided we would stop. After lunch, when I went back to continue, we saw that the tree had uprooted and had fallen into a field.

I'd buy that man another sandwich, that's for sure.