Late on a recent Saturday night, a police department in Pennsylvania reached out to 20 different local companies specializing in tree removal for help with an emergency situation involving one of its town's elderly residents, and not one was able to provide immediate assistance. The 21st call went to Rob Patton, the owner of C&R Tree Service, and he was happy to respond right away, despite being the next state over in Delaware.

"There was a dead pine tree that was rotted at the base, and with a little wind it broke at the base and fell on a poor lady's house," Patton recalls. "She was 86 years old and she didn't know where to turn, so she called 911 and luckily they found us. We went right over and were able to take care of it for her. We got the tree off the house and got it all tarped up, so that she wasn't put out of her home for the weekend."

That kind of customer service is common at C&R Tree Service, the company that Patton founded in 2007 on the cornerstones of honesty and integrity, which he learned from his strong upbringing and his time in the military. A Newark native, he joined the Navy following his high school graduation and served for four years, eventually becoming a master helmsman—one of only approximately 75 out of 250,000 active personnel at the time.

When Patton decided to transition to civilian life, working with his hands in the outdoors seemed like a natural fit. After all, he had grown up helping his father in his landscaping business from as young as age 6, and as he got older he started his own enterprise in which he mowed neighbors' lawns and shoveled snow off their driveways. With C&R, his aim was to offer services such as tree removal, tree trimming, stump grinding, snow plowing and firewood, all while giving his customers the kind of attentiveness that was often lacking in the industry.

That means every call—and sometimes there are 80 or 90 in a single day—is either answered or returned within the hour. Patton or another of his staff members will then be onsite in the next 24 hours to give the customer a free estimate.

"That's probably one of the biggest things that sets us apart from a lot of other companies," he says. "I don't like to be left hanging, so I don't leave other people hanging. Just getting back to people and showing up is important. Every day, about 10 times a day, I hear from people who called another tree service and nobody answered, called them back or showed up. I just don't see any excuse for that, no matter how busy you are."

With winter approaching, C&R is starting to get more calls for firewood, and soon the company will be plowing snow from apartment complexes and shopping centers. Patton's team can also quickly remove a single tree for a homeowner or clear an entire lot in preparation for a construction project, and he encourages people to keep up with regular tree trimming, particularly for oaks, at this time of year.

"It's very important to keep your trees trimmed up, thinned out, elevated and dead wooded," he says. "Basically, as trees grow bigger and fill in, they'll eventually end up breaking on their own—that's just their natural way of trimming themselves. But most of the time trees are in residential neighborhoods, and if they break on their own, they can fall on a house, a shed, a driveway or a car, or sometimes they'll even uproot and go right through the house. If someone is sleeping at the time, it can kill them.

"So my biggest goal is trying to keep people safe, keep the tree safe and make sure the trees look good at the same time. Preventative maintenance can go a long way."

No matter what job C&R is hired for, its crews are well-known for being courteous and respectful of the property they are working on.

"We treat people with dignity, the way we want to be treated," Patton explains. "We say, 'Yes sir, no sir, yes ma'am, no ma'am.' We take the extra 10 minutes to pick up leaves, do a walk-around and make sure there's no trash or tools left behind. The newest employee is trained from day one and that's how it starts. It's not just one person's job, it's everybody's job, and we all work as a team."

That mindset allows C&R to successfully complete each project and expand its customer base through positive word of mouth. Whether offering 24-hour emergency services, assistance after an extreme weather event or routine maintenance, Patton treats every job the same, and the proof is in his many satisfied clients.

"I want to take on every job like it's my own home," he says. "That's what we've done over the years and we've built a pretty good reputation. It makes me happy and proud that things get done right by our team, not only when I'm there but when I'm not around as well."

C&R Tree Service
Newark, Del.
(302) 985-1822
CRTreeServices.com

Published (and copyrighted) in House & Home, Volume 23, Issue 2 (November/December 2022). 
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