Heartwood Tree Care prides itself on employing the very best talent in the arboriculture industry.
Meet your Asheville area consulting arborist and production crew! Pictured in the back row, left to right: Tommy, Mike, Joe, and Yona. Kneeling, left to right: Todd and Josh.
Mike is a Warren Wilson graduate with a Forestry degree; he has been working in arboriculture for 7 years, with 5 years of climbing experience and is the lead climber.
Joe attended Appalachian State, with a focus in environmental studies; Joe is our primary TreeLove and Shrub care technician, an apprentice climber and groundsman with two years experience with Heartwood Tree Care.
Yona is our operations guru, all-around team lead, and is a Certified Treecare Safety Professional with 20 years of tree care experience!
Todd is an Outdoor Leadership Graduate who is also a Warren Wilson graduate; Mike has been a Certified Arborist since 2013 and has worked with Heartwood for 4 years.
Joshua holds an associate’s degree in horticulture from Chattahoochee Technical College and has 3 years of experience in the trees.
Meet your local consulting arborist, Tommy!
When I graduated from Western Carolina University in 2005, I had a formal education managing large stands of forest and after spending some time in Colorado working for a forestry company, I moved to Charlotte. The large stands of forest are getting fewer and fewer in the Charlotte area, so I reached out to a family friend about working at his brother’s company, Heartwood Tree Care. I knew they did tree work with the tree in mind and worked to keep the urban forest intact. I worked there for 6 years starting with dragging brush, climbing trees, leading crews, and eventually helping out with operations management. Eventually, my wife and I wanted a change of scenery, so we moved to Los Angeles where we lived for 6 years. I worked for a tree service that was very like-minded with Heartwood. After a couple of years, a shoulder injury made me hang up my harness, so I started working for an urban farming company growing veggies for celebrities, prisoners, schools, restaurants, and food banks. My wife got pregnant last year and we decided to move back to NC in October 2018 with the stipulation of living in Asheville as our only option. Luckily, Heartwood had expanded to Asheville by that point and I was welcomed back with open arms. My wife gave birth in February to our beautiful son and we are excited to raise him in Asheville. I love caring for the beautiful trees in this part of the world and meeting the wonderful people who live here.