Employees

Fred Berkelhammer has been a professional tree climber since 1982 and became a Certified Arborist in 1992.

He served apprenticeships under Robert Wells in Princeton, New Jersey, and Lee Patrick in Denver, Colorado. After a three year stint as a foreman at Boulder Tree and Landscape Co., he founded Berkelhammer Tree Experts in l988. The company incorporated in January, 1996.

Fred has written numerous articles for various publications, and speaks to garden clubs and school groups. He is certified by the ISA as Tree Risk Assessment Qualified.

A graduate of Brown University, Fred is married, has two wonderful children and lives in Louisville, CO. For fun he enjoys skiing, backpacking, choral singing and playing the drums in his neighborhood garage band.

Andy began working at Berkelhammer Tree Experts in 2009. He became a Certified Arborist in 2014, and a Colorado Department of Agriculture Qualified Supervisor in 2015. He received his Treecare Safety Professional Certification in January, 2018.

In addition to leading pruning and removal crews, Andy trains our AZA applicators, and treats Ash and Elm trees every Spring and Summer. He is a top competitive tree climber and does crane removals.

Andy grew up near Minneapolis where he used to build tree houses in his friends’ yards. He managed a landscape supply yard and installed landscapes for 8 years and has about 20 total years of green industry experience. When not swinging from trees, Andy can be found fly fishing, working on his bonsai collection and tending to his young family in Longmont, CO.

Bryan O’Connor, Foreman/Climber, was born and raised in Louisville, CO. and graduated from Monarch High School in 2010.

After graduating, he managed a Boulder restaurant for five years. During this time, he completed EMT and Wildland Firefighter training. He joined Berkelhammer Tree Experts, Inc. in April of 2015 and quickly became a climber and crew leader.

Bryan became both a Certified Arborist and a Certified Tree Safety Professional in 2018, and does many of our crane removals. Bryan wears many other hats in our company: Our in-house MacGyver, he is our mechanic, purchaser, inventory keeper and first aid authority, among many other things. He is currently a Certified EMT. Bryan enjoys heading out into the wilds when he’s not climbing trees.

Chris Thompson grew up in Haverhill, Massachusetts. His early climbing experience came during his teens, when he began scampering around the trees in a nature preserve near his house. He graduated from Green Mountain College, in Poultney, Vermont in 2016, with a degree in Natural Resource Management. He then moved to Colorado and began climbing the rock walls in and around Boulder.

He joined Berkelhammer Tree Experts, Inc. in September of that year, and quickly progressed from ground worker to climber. He has served as a crew foreman and Chris is a gifted pruner and climber. He lives in Lyons.

Shane Arnold is a fun-loving guy who was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He graduated from Summit High School in Breckenridge, CO, and from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 2017 with a degree in Political Science. Shane spent his high school years competing in cross country skiing at a very high level.

Shane runs crews and is a gifted tree pruner, remover and cabler. He does estimates and tree risk assessments as well.

His summation: “I’m just looking for some nice logs to carry out; I also like picking up some brush and chipping too. I’m a happy dog-dad to my puppy Athena and love ocean sailing as well as long walks in the mountains. My zodiac sign is Capricorn, so Aries and Libras beware.”

Okay then.

Evan Jones is a third generation Coloradan, who grew up in Boulder County and graduated from Centaurus High School in Lafayette.

As a kid, he spent a lot of time climbing trees in his neighborhood and hiking in the mountains. Prior to becoming a tree worker, he served as a wild land firefighter and a lifeguard. His previous job was pool manager and head lifeguard at Bob L Burger Recreation Center in Lafayette. He is a certified CPR instructor.

Evan is a certified Arborist and a certified CPR instructor; as such, he recently re-certified all of our employees in First Aid, CPR, and AED. He splits his work time between the field and the office. In the field, he is a climber and our go-to shrub and ornamental pruner. Increasingly, he is taking over the clerical duties, such as operating the database, communicating with customers and scheduling crews. Even though he is staying a bit cleaner these days, the crew still refers to him as “Log Cart”.

In his spare time Evan likes to engage in Christmas activities year round, travel to beautiful spots in Wyoming, and hang with his wife and daughter in Longmont.

Cal Blubaugh is a climber and stump grinder for Berkelhammer Tree. Cal grew up in Cornelius, North Carolina and received his B.S. in Recreation Management from Appalachian State University.

Before moving to Boulder, he worked a variety of jobs including ski instructing in North Carolina and Colorado, guiding backpacking trips in New Mexico, and working on a trail building crew in Montana.

Outside of work, Cal enjoys hiking, skiing, snowboarding, skateboarding, disc golf, and going on road trips.

Adam Granger is a climber and ground worker at Berkelhammer Tree. He spends much of his time pruning and removing trees; but he nonetheless graciously responds to requests to load a gigantic log (or thirty), and/or clean up a yard full of branches. 

Adam was born in Boulder, and has lived in Longmont his whole life. After graduating from Longmont High School, he went on to receive his Associates degree from Front Range Community College.

Always a lover of the outdoors, he spent his childhood climbing and jumping out of the big Honeylocust in his front yard. He enjoys snowboarding, camping and hiking with his fiance Lois and their puppy Loki. He enjoys learning the ropes of tree work and looks forward to expanding his arboricultural knowledge and skills.

Elijah Olson was born in Nederland, Colorado, right up the hill from Boulder. He grew up riding horses and playing in the mountains around Coal Creek Canyon, where his family lived. Elijah graduated from Compass Montessori School, in Golden, Colorado. After graduation, he worked at the Wondervu Inn, then in weed horticulture for a couple of years.

Elijah likes to climb rocks and read fantasy novels. He also loves hunting wild mushrooms, then cooking them up. You might see Elijah on the job plugging canisters into the base of an Ash tree, feeding a chipper, or raking twigs into a tarp.

Jack Arnold, our third of three Arnold brothers, was born in Michigan, but spent most of his childhood years in Summit County. He enjoyed hiking and climbing in the mountains that surrounded his family’s home in Silverthorne and competed in cross country and track at Summit High school. He also was known to climb up an occasional Narrowleaf Cottonwood in between these pursuits.

Jack first joined our company in the summer of 2022, after his Junior year at CU Boulder. After graduating, in Environmental and Ecological Biology, he came back and is now a full time employee. Though he aspires to be a climber like his brothers Matt and Shane before him, he confesses, “I was made for chipping”.

In his spare time, Jack hunts for mushrooms in the woods, plays disc golf and brews his own mead. He would like to get a dog, but the landlord seems to have a different opinion on that.

Connor Myers was born in Glenwood Springs; his family then moved to about 6 other states within 16 years before he moved back, so we’ll just say he’s a Coloradoan. He graduated from Colorado Rocky Mountain School in Carbondale, in 2011. He then attended the University of Vermont, graduating with a major in English and a minor in Forestry.

Connor joined up with us in the fall of 2022 as a ground worker, and quickly let it be known that he wanted to climb trees; this may have something to do with the fact that he got assigned to the stump grinder. Prior to coming on board, he spent the previous 5 years in the brewing industry. A climber by nature, he was the guy they sent up to the top of the fermenting tanks whenever they needed to be cleaned.

Connor has been rock and ice climbing for about a decade; he has climbed all over the US, and also in Mexico. He’s really good (he’s also modest: he wanted the preceding to read “pretty good”). In his free time, he also plays bass and skis.

Robin Carberry was born in Pomona, California. A beach bum from an early age, she spent much of her time boogie boarding and sun burning (she’s a ginger). She graduated from South High School in Torrance Ca.

Robin moved to Colorado in 2007 with her husband and three kids. She got her Associates degree in Medical Administration from Pima Medical Institute, and received their Director’s Award for good grades and perfect attendance. So far, she has had perfect attendance here, too!

In her personal time, Robin enjoys crafting, gaming, and medium work. She loves hanging out with her family.

Robin coordinates our plant health care program and attends to customer communications. If you call our office, there’s a pretty good chance that you’ll get to enjoy her sunny disposition.