BrewsterConnections - Brewster Academy

HOOPLA
Best Practices in Professional Tree Management
Peter Sortwell ’72, CEO of Arborwell
Upon graduation from Brewster in 1972, Peter
Sortwell wanted to be an artist. “Photography was
my passion,” he said. Faculty member Bob Richardson
– who many may remember wore many hats at that
time – was the photography teacher and convinced
Peter’s mother to buy him a telephoto lens.
Although Peter did not pursue the art of
photography following his Brewster graduation, he
found his passion in the potential of landscapes,
specifically trees.
After Brewster he went to neighboring Maine
to study the science of plants, trees, and soil –
knowledge that would serve him well in his family’s
landscaping and tree business where he spent
summers working. Upon completing his degree
in plants and soil sciences from the University of
Maine, he returned to the Beverly Farms area north
of Boston to help run S&S Tree and Landscape, the
family business.
Breaking Ground
After working for nearly 10 years at his family’s
business, a business that Peter described as seasonal
and dysfunctional, he decided to uproot and head
west, settling in the San Francisco Bay area. Realizing
that tree management was what he knew, he took
a job with one of the leading company’s in the
industry, Davey Tree Expert Company, as their San
Francisco district manager. According to Peter he
worked long hours but learned a great deal about
the business and how to organize and manage a
growing company.
Next he joined Environmental Care Inc. (now Valley
Crest) with the goal of opening a tree care division
for the largest landscape maintenance company in
the country. This same year, 1986, he would achieve
that goal when he opened Arbor Care in San Jose
as a division of Environmental Care Inc. He spent
15 years growing and developing Arbor Care to 12
operating locations throughout the country. Then on
his 48th birthday, he was told that his services were
no longer needed.
After months of reflection about his future, in
2001 he and wife Anne decided to start their own
business. They purchased Arborguard Inc., and
upon Anne’s suggestion, re-named the company –
Arborwell Professional Tree Management.
Under Peter’s leadership the company has grown
into one of the fastest growing businesses in the
country, earning a place on the Inc. 5000 list for
the past four years. The tree management company
now services commercial, residential, and estate
properties as well as municipalities and golf courses
from Sacramento to San Diego.
For the past five years Arborwell has appeared on the
San Francisco Business Times fast 100 list. Peter is an
ISA-certified arborist and in February 2011 became a
board member of the Tree Care Industry Association
(TCIA), a leading industry resource and accrediting
body for tree care companies and professional
arborists nationwide.
Learned Leadership Skills
With the founding of Arborwell, Peter said he was
both excited to leave the corporate world and, for
the first time in his working career, he was happy
to be using his learned leadership skills to create a
“people business” in which communication between
his team members allowed the company to grow,
quickly, in the right way: “Hire the right people, give
them the tools needed to succeed, and let them do
their job.”
Peter credits his dorm parent and mentor, a very
young David Smith (who would become headmaster
within two years of Peter’s graduating), with instilling
the basis for his organizational and leaderships skills.
Peter was a student leader, helping bring student
concerns and desire for change, such as the student
dress code, to the administration. At times, he and
other leaders would work late into the evening with
David working on their plans for change.
David recollected the late 1960s and the early 1970s
on campus, noting that their were few students
who were somewhat conservative and preppy in
32 BrewsterConnections – Fall 2011