Family-owned company is based in Ottertail

By Tucker Henderson

Reporter

Fifty years ago, a small family tree trimming and stump removal company was founded in the Ottertail area. With humble beginnings in a small shop with wood heat and a small fleet of equipment, Carr’s Tree Service has grown exponentially in its half-century of history.

The company began as a family affair with the original four members of the crew including Ted Carr with his sons Brian, Bruce and Brad. Not only does the tree service company remain local in the Carr family, but the business has carefully cultivated a familiar culture and atmosphere among their employees, largely because of the faith that guides the leadership within the company.

“We’re a faith based company,” said Evan Amundson, Chief Operations Officer. “We put the practices of the Bible into purpose and into play.”

“It’s how we manage and how we lead,” agreed CEO, Jake Carr, a third-generation member of the Carr’s Tree Service family. Along with their regular Bible study conference call that’s open company-wide, they also host a yearly faith safety and leadership conference. During the annual event, they have speakers both from within the company and external presenters to emphasize their culture of leadership and safety.

The emphasis on leadership goes a lot further than simply managing, as both Carr and Amundson stressed the importance of building their team up and providing them with as many opportunities as they can while they’re with the company. The leadership team finds a certain satisfaction in taking a new employee and day one and preparing, educating, and enhancing their skills throughout their time at the company.

“Opportunity,” said Amundson, “That is the word that describes working here for me because with the growth that we’ve had, it has created opportunities for our team. So for us, building the best team possible is our ultimate goal, to have the best team out there and then go and find work for them, and making sure everyone’s safe. Developing that and being a part of shaping that from a visionary standpoint has been fun.”

“We have problems like any other company,” said Carr. “When you have 300 people, you’re going to have some issues, but from my perspective, I look at the team we’ve built and it’s really good and that’s the fun part, the people that we get to work with.”

Amundson added that the business is always looking ahead and sometimes they aren’t able to see the investments pay off in their team from six months to two years in some cases. He enjoys being able to see that long term investment pay off and to see how an employee’s life and livelihood is positively impacted by their training and certification benefits.

“We’ll send our teams out to conferences for continuing education,” said Amundson. “This year we sent two guys to the Tree Care Industry Association (TCIA) expo in Baltimore, so different conferences like that.

“We continue to help our employees grow,” he continued. “Because again, our goal is to build our best team possible and without investing back into your team, you’re not going to build that best team, so really investing back into your team, back into the company is what has allowed us to maintain what’s been developed over the years and to continue to grow.”

When most people hear about an employment opportunity at Carr’s Tree Service, they might think that they need a specialized background in chain saws, brush hogs, or heavy equipment. However, that’s not the case. Amundson said that they have employees that held jobs in industries such as electrical, teaching, journalism, technology and many others that have found their place within their company.

With an average of 300 employees over the past few years, candidates come from a wide background of experience. Aptitude is one of the key markers that leadership looks for when hiring a prospective employee and they are supported with the full extent of the company’s training available in collaboration with TCIA, as well as their own safety standards.

“We use a training module through the TCIA and we work in partnership with them for our training modules,” said Amundson. “When our teams are done going through these courses they get certifications, they’re a certified Plant Healthcare Technician or a certified Ground Technician and they’ve got something tangible that they’ve put effort into. It’s on the job learning.”

“We helped create some of that too,” added Carr. “We had a path to advancement, that’s kind of how the whole thing started. We’ve obviously adapted what they have, but they’ve used some of what we’ve created to make it our own. One of the coolest things about our company is that we grow the industry. We take people from the outside that don’t maybe have experience with this and turn them into tree people.”

Both Carr and Amundson have been with the company for over a decade and they have seen a lot of change in that time. The employee base has doubled in that time and they have expanded their locations across the state and their service offerings as they’ve adapted to the changing markets and utilization of incoming technological advancements.

“Technology’s become a bigger part of what we do and how we function as a company,” said Carr. “We never thought we’d have that in the tree care industry, but here we are. Plant health care would be another one, proactively trying to save trees and prevent disease.”

“Taking care of trees’ diseases and insects versus just cutting them down,” added Amundson. “We are shaping our company to have consulting arborists that are tree doctors. That means diagnosing why your tree is sick and trying to come up with prescriptions. Emerald Ash Borer is in the area and if people aren’t treating their trees, they’re going to be dying. Another disease that’s affecting trees around here is burr oak blight.”

Five years ago, the company had one consulting arborist, longtime employee Brian Bladow who retired in 2022. Through their dedication to expand those services, Carr’s Tree Service currently has 16 consulting arborists that are available to help solve issues with disease and insect damage. Part of that expansion has grown alongside the increase in summer visitors to the region, as well as those who have moved here permanently.

“Ottertail and Perham are the largest growing cities in Otter Tail County,” said Amundson. “So with that growth, we’ve been growing with it. We’ve added services and divisions. After Covid, a lot of people came up to the lakes country and we’ve grown into cities like Fergus Falls, Detroit Lakes and Alexandria.”

Despite the expanding service region, Carr is proud to remain local to the company’s roots in the Ottertail area, where their main hub and shop are located. He emphasized the importance of hiring local and commented that nearly half of the company’s workforce calls the Ottertail shop home base.

“We’re hiring local, we’re working local,” said Carr. “We work where we live and we love that our customers support that. Many people think, ‘well, they’re so big, so their prices are expensive,’ but that’s not the case. Give us a chance, a lot of people are surprised with the deals they get.”

“Because of our training and our equipment,” said Amundson. “We feel like we can keep our costs down because we’re so efficient. We’re the only TCIA accredited company in this area, one of three in the state. With the growth, it’s created opportunities for the team, so if you’re interested in a fast-paced, fun, outdoor job, we’re always hiring.”

While winter goes on with a lighter snow load than usual, ground technicians and arborists are able to make the most of the navigable ditches and driveways and between 90 and 100 crews are out on a given day trimming trees, hauling brush, and diagnosing tree problems.

Office staff is hard at work making sure everything runs smoothly with training, customer service, and paperwork out of the office and dedicated equipment and saw mechanics are working each day to maintain over 700 pieces of equipment they use on a daily basis. With a shop specializing in Stihl products and service, anyone can stop in at their Ottertail location where they can build their relationship with the Carr’s Tree Service family whether it’s submitting an application, servicing their chainsaw, or seeing about an estimate on their own backyard project.

“Carr’s cares and we want to provide great service to all of our customers,” said said Carr.