Nearly 200 students, faculty members and Davey employees filled the SEED Campus for the second annual Collegiate Day. Colleges and universities made the trip from across the country, each sending students hand-selected by their programs.
Before the day-long event, students arrived at the campus to find hayrides, apple cider and hot cocoa waiting outside, and lawn games spread out across campus. The canopy walk was also open for anyone who wanted to explore. Dinner followed inside the barn, with faculty and students mixing together over tree-themed trivia and prizes. The evening was a chance to decompress after the day of travel, meet students from other programs and get a first feel for the campus before the day's agenda began.
An Experience Built Around Davey's Values
The next morning, students broke into groups and moved through six rotation stations, each anchored to one of Davey's core values.
At the climbing center, Safety came to life as students watched Davey professionals demonstrate the rigor and discipline that keeps crews protected every day on the job.
Perseverance took shape in the classroom through Davey's Industrial Athlete Program, which treats field employees like the professional athletes they are, equipping them with sports medicine-based tools including shift-start stretching routines and a preventative maintenance library to build strength and resilience across a career.
In the Davey Institute labs, Expertise was on full display. Students explored the science driving urban forestry research, the kind of hands-on discovery work that makes the SEED Campus one of the most distinctive assets in the industry.
The Leadership station featured an interactive career panel where students heard directly from Davey professionals across service lines about the paths that led them here and what it means to build a future in this field.
A bus tour with Davey Institute leaders brought Stewardship to life across the campus, including a stop on the Canopy Walk, a treetop structure that puts visitors eye level with a 100-year-old oak tree grove.
Davey Chairman, President and CEO Pat Covey closed the day in the barn, anchoring the final station around Integrity: what it means to lead with honesty, to do the right thing and to be part of a company that its own employees own. He answered questions from the students before all attendees lined up to take one a group picture.
The people who make Davey what it is showed up in person. Experts in climbing, research, safety, talent development, engineering and utility services wore “Ask Me” buttons covering everything from career paths and employee ownership to the culture that keeps people here for decades. For students standing at the beginning of their careers, having that level of access to working professionals who genuinely love what they do is rare. Davey was proud to put its people in that room.
A New Track for a Growing Field
This year, Collegiate Day expanded with a dedicated engineering track, hosted by Davey's Utility Asset Management group. Students from Mount Union, Kent State, the University of Akron and Ohio Northern University explored career pathways in infrastructure, and utility services.
The addition of the engineering track reflects something true about this industry: the range of meaningful work within it is broader than most students realize, and Davey is a place where multiple kinds of expertise find a home.
The arboriculture and utility industries need talented, curious people, and events like Collegiate Day exist because Davey believes the best way to show students what is possible is to open the doors and let them see it for themselves. From the research happening in the labs to the careers being built across every service line, this is an industry with depth, purpose and room to grow.
Thank you to all of the schools who attended our second annual Collegiate Day!
