The Davey Tree Expert Company
The Firm
The Davey Tree Expert Company was founded in 1880 in Kent, Ohio, where it is still based, and became employee-owned in 1979; it calls itself Ohio's largest employee-owned company and one of the ten largest in the nation. It runs residential and commercial tree and lawn care, utility line clearance, and environmental consulting, and passed a billion dollars of revenue in 2018 with more than 10,000 employees across North America.
Davey grows its residential and commercial tree care both by opening markets and by acquiring established local firms into its regional divisions. Its own newsroom dates the additions: Green Trees Arborcare of Wrentham, Massachusetts, folded into the Hartney Greymont division in 2026; Natural Directions of Summerville, South Carolina in late 2025; and Wise Oak of Londonderry, Vermont in 2024, each an owner-built arbor-care business joining under a Davey brand while its crews keep serving the same customers.
For a tree-service searcher the read is structural: an established, well-run tree care company in a market Davey wants has a standing strategic acquirer, so a buyer's bid competes with Davey's offer even when Davey is not in the room, and Davey is a credible eventual exit. Anyone meeting the company should know the 1880 founding, the employee-ownership model that lets a seller roll into an ESOP, and the division structure that keeps the acquired brand and crews largely in place.
What It Buys
Kent, Ohio. Residential and commercial tree care firms across North America, folded into an employee-owned network division by division, the century-old strategic a tree searcher meets as rival and exit.
The Davey Tree Expert Company ↗
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Confirmed Deals
- Green Trees Arborcare · May 4, 2026
Residential and commercial tree care firm in Wrentham, Massachusetts, added to the Hartney Greymont division.
- Natural Directions · November 6, 2025
Tree care company in Summerville, South Carolina, joining The Davey Tree Expert Company.
- Wise Oak, Inc. · October 17, 2024
Tree care company in Londonderry, Vermont, joining The Davey Tree Expert Company.