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Staying Current By Tom Delaney Image above ©istockphoto.com/Veni Standards Make Good Business Sense he American National Standards Institute (ANSI) maintains policies and procedures for the development, review and coordination of voluntary standards designated as American National Standards. There are more than 10,000 American National Standards (ANS); there are more than 200 standards developers accredited by ANSI. Outdoor Power Equipment Institute, Tree Care Industry Association, Irrigation Association and American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers, as well as several green building standards groups, are all standards developing organizations (SDOs). PLANET is one of the groups that participate on committees with these SDOs. One such standard that you should consider using if you do work with woody ornamentals or trees is the ANSI A300 standards. T ANSI A300 standards ANSI A300 standards are divided into multiple parts, each focusing on a specific aspect of woody plant management — pruning; soil management (fertilization); supplemental support systems; lightning protection systems; management of trees and shrubs during site planning, site development and construction; planting and transplanting; integrated vegetation management; root management; tree risk assessment; integrated pest management; and urban forest products — and are used to develop written specifications for work assignments, not to be used as specifications in and of themselves. These standards help plant maintenance managers write accurate work specifications that follow accepted industry practices. With written work specifications, they can compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges. Landscape contractors should include these specifications as part of their estimates and/or contracts. In this way, they can provide clients with a way to compare one bid to another, giving reputable businesses protection from dishonest competitors. Those who say they will deliver the same service at a lower price, but only provide a fraction of that service, can be exposed with written work specifications. "Whenever I discuss best practices with my clients, I reference the ANSI A300 standards," said Elliott Schaffer of Environmental Horticultural Services. "When doing pruning training, I always tell companies they should purchase the ANSI A300 (Part 1) - 2008 Pruning Standards. I am a firm believer in standards in order to set apart the professionals from the non-professionals" Increasingly, contracts for governmental, institutional and large commercial projects are specifying that tree and ornamental maintenance be performed according to the ANSI A300 standards. So employees need to be trained to use and understand these standards. Doing so will not only result in all employees doing the same job in the same way, but also in uniform communication between the property owner, the sales representative, and the landscape contractor. At ValleyCrest, ANSI standards are very important. "We definitely use them as an input in the development of our own standards," said Vic Bernardi, general manager of Tree Care Services,ValleyCrest. "We do not follow them exclusively, but do cover them essentially in their entirety within our own standards. Some of our own standards are more stringent, or we use slightly different terminology. We most often use ANSI language in written specs to customers as this does allow apples-to-apples comparisons when our competitors also use this language." The use of uniformity in standards and best management practices is vital for the industry to maintain it reputation of operating in a professional manner and maintaining the quality of LI life in communities across America. Tom Delaney is director of government affairs at the Professional Landcare Network (PLANET). For more information, visit www.landcarenet work.org. 30 Landscape and Irrigation May/June 2013 www.landscapeirrigation.com