How Stephen Blair Tree Surgery is adapting with the times

A New Year greeting from tree surgeon Stephen Blair whetted my appetite to catch up with him to find out more about how he and his business, Stephen Blair Tree Surgery, based at Carrbridge, was doing.

I see Stephen each year at the annual Carve Carrbridge event and keep in touch outside of that, but until his message, I did not know Xander, his eldest son, had joined the business and that Stephen had now racked up 25 years in the arb sector.

Back in 2016, when I first met and interviewed Stephen for essentialARB, he was passionate about managing workload stress and achieving a better work/life balance. He has struggled in these areas personally and knew, from talking to others in the arb world, that he was not alone.

Aberdeen oak tree removal with Avant mini loader for Scot Arb tree surgeons. (Image: eA/Supplied)

At that time he had just invested in a Terex six-tonne dumper, had a nine-tonne Caterpillar digger, a passion for Unimogs, and was looking to develop his tree-surgery business with more groundwork and maintenance jobs. His parting comment after our meeting probably best summed up his view of life at the time:

“I get to play on diggers, climb trees and drive trucks in a wonderful setting. I like cutting things down and I can do that here for a decent living and, more importantly, with a nice lifestyle to go with it.”

While it would have been easy just to skip right to the current day and hear about Xander joining, I was interested to hear from Stephen about how things had gone in the last eight years for him and the business. Sadly, things did not go as well as he might have wanted on the groundwork side, with a disagreement with a client over payment, after works were completed, causing much stress and leading Stephen to sell his bigger nine-tonne digger and the Terex dumper.

Then came a call from an old client in the west of Scotland, which seems like it came at the right time.

The last tree to be felled out of 50 that were surrounding a house in Kingussie. Bobcat digger and Timberwolf chipper in action. (Image: eA/Supplied)

“It was a large tree job that lasted six months,” he said. “It was a caravan site, so I had accommodation. I committed to that three days a week. I realised my old Unimog was not up to it, so I replaced it with a newer model which was a large investment. This was a U20 and meant I could travel down on a Sunday night and work until Wednesday and return back for teatime. I also purchased a Nisula tree shear from A. C. Price (Engineering) to fit my three-tonne digger, with which I could do a lot of the groundwork and processing.

“This job took me into April 2017 and once it was complete, I went back to my local work. The Unimog U20 was too large an investment to be pottering around the village so I sold it. I had carried out some climbing jobs for Apex Trees at Drumnadrochit and become good friends with the owner, Dan Haig, so I bought a Valmet roof mount from him, as well as a timber trailer and a TP 250 chipper from Jas P Wilson, all at good second-hand prices.

“Over the next couple of years I went through a lot of kit – two old U90 Unimogs, a JCB Contractor, a tracked chipper, 1.5-tonne mini digger and a three-tonne tracked dumper. My jobs varied so much, from trees, to groundwork, to varying terrain, so I would just buy it, use it, and sell it. I have been doing it this way now for so long it is just second nature. I’ve a large group of dealers that I know I can buy from and they know I’ll be back in a few months to trade in.”

Dealing with a tree issue at the Hermitage River Gauging Station. (Image: eA/Supplied)

COVID proved to be quite a defining time for Stephen, both personally and professionally. He had separated from his wife just before lockdown and, like most of the country, stayed at home, as instructed, for five weeks. He had a good time with his two sons, doing many things including making a gym for them to use. Business-wise, he effectively shut up shop, put machinery finance on hold, took a bounce-back loan, and tried to take stock. River restoration work in the north of Scotland got him going again, but at the expense of being away from Xander and Stewart, his boys.

He soon returned to Carrbridge and tree works under the COVID regulations.

“We weren’t allowed to all be in the same vehicle, so I paid my two subby climbers more wages to meet on site and be self sufficient, and cracked on,” he said. “Dan from Apex Trees gave me work on a six-month rhododendron-clearing job in Inverness, so I just got my head down and got stuck into that. 

“We all wore masks, sprayed our hands, took our temperature and went to work. 

“The roads were quiet, my boys were babysat by Netflix and they were big enough to be home alone.”

A new company, Highland RoboFlail, was set up in May 2023. (Image: eA/Supplied)

Stephen experienced his busiest year for tree jobs in 2021/22. He was doing dangerous tree removals for the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) from Stirlingshire to Caithness. Storm Arwen meant plenty of work for all including Stephen. An Avant mini loader was purchased, with many attachments, allowing him to take on lots of different kinds of jobs. Then everything changed.

“By March 2023 it felt like work just died overnight,” said Stephen. “Fuel prices increased, job rates fell, and things just reminded me of the 2008 recession. 

“I got a strange feeling. I was machine rich and work poor. Calum, my summer worker, had another job. My nephew, who was working for me at that time, went to Australia, to play rugby.

“Xander, who had been out with me on jobs, decided he was not interested in tree work. Looking back and talking to him, I understand why. He frankly did not like the way I treated him at work. If I am honest, thinking about it now, it reminded me of how my dad treated me when I was younger. I would try to be patient, like I am with everyone else, but a side would come out in me that I did not like. He did not want to go to university, so he got a local job in a kitchen.

“I was quiet with work and had no staff anyway. No youngsters ever ask for work any more and I just felt done, my body was seizing and, with the divorce, my head was not in a good place. I was tired of running around and working so hard. I would be taking three machines to a job and bringing three machines back myself – chipper, digger, Avant. I simply did not want to do it any more, and since I was 19 I had never let the words ‘I don’t want to’ be part of my work ethic. So I thought ... that’s it – call it a day.”

Three-tonne digger with grab extracting timber to be used to retain riverbank on the Forestry and Land Scotland job at Glenmore. (Image: eA/Supplied)

However, after taking some time to reflect, Stephen decided to sell off the bulk of his machinery and start up Highland RoboFlail, in May of 2023. This new venture, utilising a Bomford Turner Flailbot (supplied by Field and Forest Machinery) for vegetation management on forestry jobs, tempted Xander back into the business, where he has remained.

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“He is very good at operating and is very patient, whereas I’m not,” said Stephen. “I am a hyper hot head, which is great for cutting down trees. The Flailbot takes a lot of maintenance and looking after. Also, I think he could see how much he was helping me. I was struggling again with doing everything myself as well as bringing up two teenagers on my own. He just grew up and came onboard to help.”

While a lot of focus recently has been on Highland RoboFlail, Stephen has also been working on the arb and groundwork side of the business as well. There, Stephen is making more use of his go-to subbies to do the ‘heavy lifting’, as it were, while he is doing the planning and organisation. There have been jobs carried out for Highland Council, SEPA, Forestry and Land Scotland, local estates, private households, building companies, the Landmark Adventure Centre, landscapers, the local golf course and Cairngorm National Park.

Stephen said: “For SEPA, I have carried out work for more than four years on water gauging stations situated on rivers all over Scotland. We have been making sure the areas around them are safe for SEPA personnel to access and carry out their jobs, by reducing the risk of tree failure on them, and the SEPA infrastructures. At the Landmark Adventure Centre, at Carrbridge, I carry out the removal of dead wood and hazardous limbs on the old growth Scots pines throughout the park.

“A tree surveyor monitors these trees and we follow his instruction. It is very important to consider the ecology of these woodlands, when doing this work. We leave as much dead wood as possible without risking the public and staff.  Habitat piles of branches are left, where possible, to encourage insect life and wood chips are spread to help mulch areas that previously had a heavy footfall.

“For Highland Council I carry out storm damage and dangerous tree removal. After Storm Arwen, many of the larger trees in the area were damaged and I was contacted to deal with the aftermath in some of the smaller woodlands in Badenoch and Strathspey.  

“I have also recently been doing tree works in the Perthshire area, where there has been beaver damage caused to trees. Again this has been for trees that will affect the SEPA infrastructure. Most of the trees that have been felled completely are okay. They have not hit anything yet. But the trees the beavers have girdled and half chewed need to be removed. I think the introduction of beavers is great – I admire their felling abilities and their work ethic.

Dealing with an ash tree with dieback on a SEPA site on the River Tay, Perthshire. (Image: eA/Supplied)

“They will re-coppice many trees that need it, but things have changed in the last 400 years. Farmland has been claimed for agriculture, bridges and roads have been built along riversides, so it all needs to be managed and this is where people like me come into it. My great uncle Vic was a game warden in Edmonton National Park, in Canada, after the war until the 1980s. His job was blowing up beaver dams, so maybe things will come full circle and helping to manage the issues caused by beavers could be a future job for me.”

With Xander now fully onboard, he and Stephen have been discussing the future of the businesses.

“Xander wants to start using a chainsaw and learn about trees and felling, as he knows that on the tree jobs, he’s basically the minion gofer, which is where you have to start,” Stephen said. “He felt I should buy another Unimog, as it was at least 50 per cent of my personality, so I have picked up a Unimog and feel a comeback is on the cards. This Mog has a front-mounted chipper and better towing capability for the RoboFlail on the forest roads and tracks that we use and on the hills. It gets into places that the standard arb vehicles cannot. It is clear and getting clearer that the future for the company, whether in my name, or Highland RoboFlail, is to grow and we musn’t be scared to get bigger and take on new challenges.  I want us to be part of rewilding projects, and now we are getting work with conservation people, and the bigger organisations, we are hoping this will come. I am going to train Xander on the saw, get him his tickets, and we have chatted about him doing some mechanics courses. I recently did my first river job for Forestry and Land Scotland, extracting fallen trees and using them to retain a riverbank from undermining and eroding the public footpath at Glenmore, adding another potential future work stream. I’ve had to sub my tree work out for these last couple of years and I still will on the larger projects, but the smaller domestic and commercial jobs we will do ourselves.”

Xander’s thinking is similar. He said: “I would like to see the business branch out and cover more areas of work. I see us doing a lot more than just cutting heather. Currently we are cutting heather for regeneration or native Scottish trees, but it would be cool to get into bracken cutting and path restoration.”

The final word goes to Stephen: “I’ve done everything myself, in the past, because I’ve had to since I was 19, but I need to take the help. I am terrible at being impatient and pushing my way to the front, then complaining I do all the work. The business is there for the boys. It’s their future. Hopefully now, with technology, they can go much further than me.”