Davey Tree Announces Organizational Promotions

The Davey Tree Expert Co. promoted four to positions in its corporate management leadership team. Pat Covey and Steve Marshall have both been named executive vice president/operations. Nick Sucic and Tom Countryman have been named vice president and chief information officer, respectively.

“These promotions, and future organizational changes, will enable us to aggressively manage the business opportunities in each of our four primary markets from a position of management strength,” said Davey’s president and CEO Karl Warnke.

Pat Covey

Covey will retain responsibility for the Resource Group, Davey’s consulting division, and will add residential/commercial tree and lawn care and commercial landscape services and personnel recruiting and development to his portfolio. He joined Davey in 1991 as internal auditor. In 1993 he transferred to eastern utility operations, and was promoted to administrative manager in 1995. He served as a team leader on the SAP R/3 implementation project and managed the systems and process group until 2003, when he was promoted to vice president of southern utility operations. Covey earned a degree in business from the University of Wisconsin and is a certified public accountant. He is a past member of Davey’s President’s Council. Marshall will continue to manage eastern utility operations, and will add The Davey Tree Surgery Company, Davey Tree Expert Company of Canada, Ltd. and operations support to his responsibilities. He began his Davey career in 1977 with the residential services line as a sales and service technician. He became a sales representative a year later.

Steve Marshall

Marshall was promoted to district manager in 1979 and area manager in 1989. In 1991 he was promoted to regional manager for western operations and in 1994 to operations manager. In 1997 he joined eastern utility operations as vice president for southern operations. In 2003 he was named vice president and general manager for eastern utility. Marshall holds a bachelor’s degree in fine arts from Kent State University and he is a past member of Davey’s President’s Council. Sucic will add the vice president title to his current responsibilities as controller. He will continue to oversee financial and operations accounting, corporate tax and SEC reporting, as well as Sarbanes-Oxley compliance and subsidiary accounting. He joined Davey in 2001 as controller and chief accounting officer. A certified public accountant, Sucic is a graduate of Kent State University and serves on the board of the school’s alumni association. He is a member of The Institute of Management Accountants and Financial Executive International and serves as director for both organizations. Countryman will oversee both the systems and process and information technology groups from the newly created CIO position. According to Warnke, the position was created to respond to the more critical role that information will play in increasingly competitive markets. In announcing Countryman’s appointment, Warnke said, “Tom has a broad knowledge base in systems and process, along with many years of successful interaction with all operations. He will bring this valuable experience to his new position.” Countryman joined Davey as a programmer analyst in the IT department in 1996. For more information about Davey Tree, visit www.davey.com.