Arboriculture Canada Message to our Customers . . .

When we started this training company in 1999, one of our foremost goals was to increase safety for those who work with trees and help to reduce accidents and the loss of life.   Over the last 11 years, we have accomplished and pursued this goal through training and education using various approaches and it still remains our most important goal today.

We felt that offering short burst (2 to 3 day programs) in specific skills disciplines would best suit our target markets because workers could invest in education and professional development while continuing in their current job positions.  Hand’s on competency based training, delivered in consistent and laddered modules in a short burst format was not being offered Canadian wide.  We began in 1999 by delivering open enrolment programs in various locations across Canada.  For the first few years, most of the training we brought to the industry was through the medium of these open enrolment, tuition based courses.  In addition, we started to get requests from organizations, businesses, municipalities etc. to come on-site to their specific location and provide training that was designed in partnership and according to their specific requests – customized courses.  Thus, we entered into the business of sending our instructors directly to our customer’s shops and field sites to train workers in the specific skill sets they required.

In the last 5 years, our focus in bringing training and education to the various industries we service has been channelled predominantly through private, contract programs.  Currently, approximately 80% of our training occurs for organizations who hire us to bring an instructor on-site for their own staff.  The demand for qualification testing and certification has increased with our private training programs as well, and we are seeing more than 50% of our private training customers requesting documentation in the form of qualification testing and competency certification for their staff.

For these reasons, we want to let our customers know that beginning in 2011, the focus of Arboriculture Canada will be to continually move in the direction of providing customized training and education services to organizations and businesses that require on-site private training programs.  We will continue to offer a select number of open enrolment training programs in a few cities across Canada.  However, you will notice a reduction in the courses and locations of open enrolment training programs being offered.  Please take note of this, so that you can plan your training programs accordingly in advance.  In some cases, it may be necessary to travel to enrol in a particular course.

An option for your training plan is to partner with local arborists and organizations that may want the same training you are looking for.  We can come to your location with a trainer if a group of people is organized.  Please call Nancy to learn more about this opportunity.

In order to remain efficient as a business and strong in quality of training, we are going to be focusing on the following goals:

• Arboriculture Canada will be known as a leader worldwide for the following things:
  • Quality of training and quality of instructors  
  • Knowledge of the working skills of related industries and the ability to train to high standards
  • Utilizing teaching methodologies for adult learners
  • Flexibility in curriculum development for your in-house training programs
  • Arboriculture Canada will lead the development and professional growth of the industry in Canada through state of the art teaching techniques (‘edutainment’), and a strong connection with industry standards and regulations across Canada and around the world.  This means that all instructors will continue to be ‘linked in’ to industry committees and networking with leaders in the industry.

In short, if you are a business owner, a supervisor, a training coordinator, a health and safety risk manager or a working arborist – if you know that you and/or your staff need the best training available in Canada, we encourage you to contact Nancy at 1-877-268-8733 and discuss setting up a private training program.

For those smaller businesses and individuals who may not have enough people to set up a private training program, we encourage you to check our training schedule regularly at www.arborcanada.com and register early for open enrolment programs.  As the number of programs available in 2011 will be limited, we expect that registrations will reach maximum levels quite quickly.

We look forward to serving you in the fall of 2010 – and offering the same great service in 2011.