We got into this because we kept seeing trees ruined
Sixteen years working Central Texas canopy, from structural pruning on young oaks to crane removals over rooflines. Employee crews, ISA credentials, and a standing refusal to top a tree.
Sixteen years of Central Texas trees
Summit started in 2009 with one truck, one chipper and a fairly specific frustration. Marcus had spent three seasons climbing for other outfits and watching perfectly good live oaks get topped because topping is fast, it looks dramatic to a homeowner, and it sells. The trees paid for it about five years later, usually in a storm.
The bet was that enough people in Austin would rather pay for the correct answer than the fast one. It turned out to be right. We have worked more than eleven thousand trees since, added a consulting practice, and become TCIA accredited in 2014.
We have also watched oak wilt move through neighbourhoods we work in every week, and watched the 2011 and 2022 droughts kill trees that had stood since before the houses around them existed. That shapes how we talk to customers. We will tell you when a tree can be saved, and we will tell you plainly when it cannot.
The crew is fifteen people now, all employees rather than subcontractors, which is the only way to keep standards and insurance consistent. Every climber is trained on rope-and-saddle technique before they are trusted with a saw in a canopy, and nobody puts spikes on a tree that is staying.
What we hold, and what it is worth to you
- ISA Certified Arborist
- Examined on tree biology, diagnosis, pruning standards and safety, with documented field experience and ongoing continuing education. Not the same thing as a business licence.
- TRAQ Qualified
- Tree Risk Assessment Qualification, the framework behind every written risk report we produce. It is what makes an assessment defensible to a permit office or an insurer.
- TCIA Accredited
- Accredited by the Tree Care Industry Association since 2014, which audits safety programmes, training, insurance and business practices rather than just tree knowledge.
- $2M liability and workers comp
- Certificates issued directly to you or your insurer before work starts. Workers comp is the one people forget, and the one that matters most if a climber is hurt in your yard.
Who you will actually deal with
Marcus Adeyemi
Owner, ISA Certified Arborist TX-4188A
Started climbing in 2006 and founded Summit in 2009 after three seasons of watching crews top trees for money. TRAQ qualified. Handles every consulting report personally.
Renata Villalobos
Operations Manager
Runs scheduling, permits and the emergency line. If you call at 2am about a tree on your roof, there is a good chance Renata is the one who picks up.
Bo Kittredge
Lead Climber
Fourteen years on rope and the person we send when the removal is over a pool or six feet from a bedroom wall. Trains every new climber on the crew.
About our credentials
It means the arborist has passed the International Society of Arboriculture examination covering tree biology, diagnosis, pruning standards, soil management and safety, has at least three years of documented field experience, and maintains the credential through continuing education. It is the recognised professional standard in arboriculture, and it is not the same as holding a business licence.
Ask for a certificate of insurance issued directly to you by their insurer, not a photocopy handed over by the crew. It should show general liability and, critically, workers compensation. If a crew member is injured on your property and the company carries no workers comp, that exposure can end up on your homeowners policy.
Our pruning, removal and stump crews are all employees, not subcontractors, which is what lets us keep standards and insurance consistent. The exception is crane work, where we hire a certified operator and machine from a licensed crane company. Our own climber always rigs the picks.
We tell you immediately, photograph it, and our insurer handles it. In sixteen years the honest answer is that it has happened a handful of times, mostly irrigation heads and one gate. The reason we protect driveways with mats and rig rather than drop is precisely to keep that number where it is.
Want a straight answer about your tree?
We will walk your property, tell you what it needs, and tell you if the honest answer is that it needs nothing at all.