Bill Burley leads a helicopter safety class, showing how strategy starts before takeoff.
injuries. Without broad systems think- ing, Burley warned, “We aren’t making any gains, we’re just shifting around the injuries.”
GET A SAFETY AND EFFICIENCY AUDIT
BUILD YOUR FOUNDATION WITH Z133 Any respectable safety program begins with the ANSI Z133 Safety Standard — a voluntary but essential guide de- veloped specifically for arboriculture. Burley even considers it the bedrock of responsible operations. “You need to understand it,” he said. “And if you don’t, you need to ask someone who could tell you.” According to the Heli-Ax founder, too few companies even know it exists, let alone train their workers on it. Burley believes that ignorance is dangerous — and potentially costly. Without wide- spread adoption of the Z133, he fears external regulation will be imposed to force safer practices. “You have to get in compliance,” he said. “Then you can build your own pro- gram. But without that, you’re shooting in the dark.”
Burley believed the first step in building a high-functioning tree care company was to seek outside insight. “Safety is the thing we need to improve on,” he explained. “The numbers are just too high.” He encourages companies to invite a third-party expert to assess operations — not just for compliance, but for perfor- mance and culture. Even companies that believed they were running tight ships could benefit from fresh eyes. “If you think that your company’s op- erating really well, call someone who knows what they’re doing better than you do,” he said. A good audit could help reveal hidden patterns — like a drop in struck-by in- cidents but a rise in electrical contact
The ANSI Z133 standard remains the foundation of Burley's safety-first philosophy.
64 | Summer 2025 ArborTIMES ™
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