32 City Trees
Utility Arborist Association
30 Years of Partnership: Colorado Springs Utilities and Colorado Springs City Forestry
by Phil Helvie, Operations Supervisor, Colorado Springs Utilities
This piece originally appeared in the Utility Arborist Newsline Nov/Dec 2016 issue.
Partner Update
Like other utilities, Colorado Springs Utilities (CSU)
faces the challenge of managing the vegetation on our
system to provide safe, reliable electricity within defined
budget constraints and often times with a negative customer
perception of our line clearance methods. CSU has been a
designated Tree Line USA utility for 21 years, maintaining a
high degree of customer satisfaction with excellent reliability
performance. The par tnership we have with the Colorado
Springs Forestry Depar tment has played a big par t in our
overall success.
Across the country you often find a lack of cooperation and
understanding between the utility vegetation management
team and the local city forestry depar tments. In Colorado
Springs we are for tunate to have a forestry depar tment that
has always shown a willingness to learn and understand
the challenges that utility arborists have in maintaining and
caring for the treasured urban forest that also presents a
potential threat to the safety of our utility system and to our
customers.
For over 30 years I have found a mutual passion for tree
care in my working relationships with the staff members
of our Colorado Springs Forestry Depar tment. Our common
objective is to provide the best overall forestry and line clear-
ance programs possible to serve our customers in Colorado
Springs.
A mutual aid agreement was developed in 1984 that
took advantage of the exper tise in both depar tments. The
Colorado Springs Parks and Recreation Depar tment chose
CSU Operations Supervisor Phil Helvie (holding plaque) is pictured here celebrating Arbor Day a few years ago with (L to R)
Mark Crow, David Richardson and Phillip Hardgrove of Asplundh, CSU Manager Mason Parsaye, and Rex Hilton and Johnny
Hearlson of Asplundh.
