Asplundh Tree Expert Co. Elects Scott M. Asplundh to Chairman/CEO
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Sept. 5, 2017
Willow Grove, PA –The board of the Asplundh Tree Expert Co., the nation’s largest utility vegetation management company, has elected Scott M. Asplundh to the position of chairman of the board and chief executive officer (CEO). With 37 years of experience in field operations and corporate management, he represents the highest level of leadership within the third generation family members who now manage this international corporation based in the Philadelphia area.
Although Scott Asplundh has already served as the CEO for seven years, the board chose to add the responsibilities of board chairman since the health of former Chairman Christopher B. Asplundh, Sr. was declining in July. He passed away peacefully at his home in Huntingdon Valley, Pennsylvania on August 10, 2017 at the age of 77.
In the months before his passing, Chris Asplundh, Sr. expressed his confidence in the leadership experience that Scott has attained through his many years of meeting challenges and building successes for the company. Founded in 1928 by three brothers, the Asplundh Tree Expert Co. is a family-owned and managed corporation that primarily performs utility vegetation management, but also provides a variety of services for utility infrastructure. The corporation and its subsidiaries employ over 35,000 men and women throughout the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Mr. Asplundh joined the company full-time in 1980 after earning a bachelor’s degree in economics from St. Lawrence University in New York. He went on to earn an MBA from Pennsylvania State University in 1982. Although he had worked part-time since 1976 on various tree crews as a college student, Mr. Asplundh spent the next several years gaining more field experience with assignments in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Illinois. In late 1987, after two years as a field manager of Asplundh operations in Missouri and eastern Kansas, he was elected vice president and returned to the corporate headquarters in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania.
As the company expanded and diversified in the 1990s, Mr. Asplundh took on oversight responsibility for several field management regions in the U.S., Australia and New Zealand, as well as subsidiary operations in utility construction and underground locating. In January 2001, he was elected president of the company and in September 2010, the board of directors elected him CEO.
Mr. Asplundh is a member of various industry organizations including the International Society of Arboriculture, the Utility Arborist Association and the Tree Care Industry Association and is an active participant in Edison Electric Institute conferences. He currently serves as the chairman of the Electrical Transmission and Distribution Strategic Partnership in conjunction with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which focuses on reducing fatalities and injuries for employees who work near or on power lines. He is a leader in implementing telematics for the corporation’s equipment fleet and in 2013, he earned Penn State University’s Smeal Graduate Distinguished Achievement Award.
Residing in Meadowbrook, Pennsylvania, Mr. Asplundh and his wife of 37 years, Hali, are the parents of two adult children, Madeleine and Jared.
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