The Davey Tree Expert Co. — No. 2 on the 2023 LM150 list — recently welcomed guests to its corporate headquarters to celebrate 45 years of employee ownership. The company welcomed visitors with a tour of the recently renovated third wing, which opened to employees in January 2024 and added 70 new jobs to Kent, Ohio. (See LM’s full report on the headquarters expansion here)
“Everybody can be an owner,” said Pat Covey, president and CEO at Davey Tree. “We have over 6,000 owners. There’s no major owner that has a big piece of the company. We are the poster child for the widespread ability to invest in a company that you work for. I thank everybody who continues to lean into employee ownership and represents the best of what we can offer every day.”
Additionally, the company celebrated the declaration of March 15, 2024, as “The Davey Tree Expert Company Day” in Kent.
Construction on the company’s Kent-based corporate office started in July 1984 when Davey had approximately 3,000 employees nationwide and revenue of $118.9 million. Since 1984, Davey has grown to more than 12,000 employees nationwide and revenue of $1.69 billion in 2023, which led to the new addition to the home office.
“Davey continues to show our unwavering support to the Kent community and Northeast Ohio, and the completion of our corporate office renovations is an example of our commitment,” Covey explained. “The added and upgraded space at our corporate office is expected to bring and retain almost 600 Davey jobs to Kent.”
The company will continue to expand in the city. Across the street from its HQ, the company is building a new property that will span more than 170 acres and be home to specialized training and research facilities for Davey. The Davey Tree SEED (Science, Employee Education and Development) Campus will include a 25,000-square-foot training center and associated offices, a 10,700-square-foot indoor climbing center, 18 spans of non-energized utility right-of-way, laboratories and greenhouses, a container nursery and multiple research plots and fields with over 500 different species.
Additional training and research facilities on the SEED Campus include:
- Outdoor climbing centers.
- Distance learning facilities.
- Canopy walk, turf/golf fairways and greens.
- Replicated tree plantations.
- Mature tree, soil ecology and wetland research.
- Historic barn event center.
The anticipated completion of the SEED Campus is the summer of 2025.
