Hi my name is Patrick Wallin and I am the Proud owner of Rocky Top Tree Service. I’d like to take a few moments to tell you how our tree service came to be and also what makes us so indifferent to most of the tree businesses in our industry today!

It all started when I was about 6 years old. Every day when my dad would come home from work he would tell me about the job of the day and what it consisted of. I remember the first time I worked up the courage to ask him if I could go to work with him. I slept out on the couch in our living room because I knew he would always grab his work boots and sit on the couch to put them on. Sure enough, just like always he sat down and began to lace his boots up. I looked up at him and he apologized for waking me up and told me to go back to sleep. I told him the reason I slept on the couch and then asked him if I could go to work with him. His response didn’t take long…. He said “no boy, It’s too dangerous and I don’t want you running around getting hurt.” I put the sad face on and after a few minutes he chuckled and said “alright you can go but you have to stay close to me and listen to everything I tell you to do because this job is very dangerous. Go get your clothes on while I tell your mom you’re going with me.” I lit up like a Christmas tree and was ready go in no time.

We began to head down the road in one of dad’s work trucks that he called “Old Blue”. I sat in the middle right next to Dad and he began to lecture me of the WHAT NOT and WHAT TO DO’S. I soaked up every word. I couldn’t wait to just get to the job and see how everything worked.

We arrived!! Dad got out of the truck and helped me out. He walked me and the rest of the crew around and explained what was getting done to each tree and also what was expected from each of the crew members…. I looked at my dad and said”WHATS MY JOB DAD!?” He told me to wait by him and watch for a while…. So that’s what did.

This is where the spark happens… I began to watch one of Dads workers put on gear and then I asked him what he was doing. He looks at me and point to a big tree leaning over the homeowners house and says “do you see that big tree close to the house?” I said “Yes”. He says “ I’m going to climb it and cut it down so it doesn’t fall on these people’s house in the future”.

I sat in the yard and watched as my dad’s climber began to work his way up the tree and I didn’t take my eyes off of him. I watched every cut. Some of the limbs he was able to free cut and let hit the ground, others he would have to use a rope to tie onto them and lower them down to the ground with the help of the other crew members on the ground. My dad looks over at me and says “ Well what do you think?” I looked back at him and said “can I climb trees for you someday?” He just smiled great big and said “ Maybe someday, let’s see how you do today.”

After the top of the tree was removed and all of the limbs was taken off the climber tied a rope to the top of the log that remained standing and began to climb back to the ground. My dad looks at me and says “Stay right here and don’t move. I’m going to go finish cutting this tree down.” He sent one of the guys over to sit with me and he explained what my dad was doing. I watched as my dad put a notch in the tree and then he walked out in the yard a little ways and he set an empty pop can on the ground. I looked at dads ground man and said “what’s he doing” he laughed and said “showing off” still confused I began to watch as dad cut into the back of the tree and the log slowly fell over and the tip of the log crushed the pop can! I jumped up in excitement, looked over at the ground man and said “That was Awesome!” Then I was hooked!

After dad cut the log into firewood he had his workers load all the wood up onto a trailer and then he motioned for me to come over to where he was. Didn’t take me long… I jumped up, ran as fast as I could and he looked at me and said “Are you ready for your job?” I said “Yeah!” He said “Go grab that rake and start raking all these sticks into piles so we can load them up.” I ran over and grabbed the rake and began to rake the yard. I wanted to make my dad proud and show him that I belong out on the job with him! So I raked EVERY SINGLE STICK IN THE YARD!! He came back to check on me a little while later and looked and me with a big smile and said “Looks good bub, that’s it for the day!” The guys loaded all the piles of rakings and we hit the road!

On our way home dad notices me picking at my hands and asked what I was doing. I looked back and told him the I had a couple bubbles popped up on my hands. He takes a look at them and he said “You know what those are?” I said “no.” He said “ That’s a blister and it’s caused from working hard”.

I looked back at him and I asked if I could see his hands. I noticed his hands were all calloused over and very rough… I said “ Your hands are rough but they don’t have any bubbles so you must not have worked very hard today.” He just laughed and put his hand on my head and pulled me over and gave me a big hug and told me how good of a job I had done and then handed me my first paycheck! I couldn’t wait! $5! I thought it was way too much but he said I earned it and that every day I worked with him that’s what he would pay me! So it began!

I worked with Dad as much as he would let me through the summer which was a couple days a week. I just watched, listened and learned everything I could.

I remember the summer after I turned 7 we were on our way to work and I looked at my dad and I asked him for a raise! He laughed, then looked over at me and said “ We will talk about it in our way home.” The day came to an end and we were on our way back home and Dad looks over at me with a serious face and says “ So you want a raise huh? Well boy what do you think you’re worth? I gulped and then looked back at him and said “Well dad I’ve been working with you for an awhile now and I’m 7 now so I think $7 a day is fair.” He pauses for a minute… looks over at me and says “ I tell you what, $7 a day and I’ll buy your lunch and a candy bar every day” I smiled ear to ear and gave him a big hug and thanked him and then we rode home. I couldn’t wait to tell my mom that I got a raise. I felt like I was moving up in the company!!

Time would go by.. I would get older and dad would not only put more responsibility on me but I noticed his expectations were higher for me than the rest of the crew. Which I was fine with. I still had a burning passion for the tree industry and wanted to learn everything I could. My dad was a patient man. He would only teach you if you truly showed an interest that you wanted to learn. So he taught me everything he knew!

A lot of things happen in-between the age gaps of my life… Now I’m 13! It’s time to buy my first chainsaw. This is a day I will never forget! Dad walks me into an Ace-Hardware store in a little town called Piketon. He walks over to the Stihl Chainsaw display and begins to tell me about all the different saws. He points to one and says “This saw here is perfect for a young man learning how to operate a chainsaw.” I looked up at him full of excitement and asked if we could get it? He looks back at me and says Yes but we’re also getting these… as he’s holding up a hard hat and a pair of chainsaw chaps.” He said “ The first time I catch you trying to run this saw without these you won’t be allowed to run it anymore.”

We got back home and dad had a few logs outside and showed all the ins and outs of operating a chainsaw but to his surprise I surpassed his expectations because I had been watching him and listening even when he didn’t think I was from a young age. I can’t explain to you how I felt as a 13 year old kid having the opportunity to be able to grab ahold of a chainsaw and do what I felt like God had created me to do felt like. I just knew it was right.

So you’re probably wondering where does the name ROCKY TOP TREE SERVICE come from?

Well now I will explain. When we were growing up as kids we bounced around from place to place a lot due to habits that my parents formed later in their lives. We wound up living in a campground off of North Shore Drive close to Rocky Fork Lake in Hillsboro Ohio for about a year and that’s when my Dad decided to Name his business Rocky Top Tree Service. That name is one that would stick.

My Grandparents raised me and my 5 brothers and sisters majority of our lives after my mom and dad picked up their drug habits due to fact of children services getting involved and the possibility of all of us kids getting put into separate homes. There are 5 of us by the way! My parents would be in and out of our lives from then on. My grandparents tried their best to let them have us when they could as long as they met their guidelines.

When I was 15 about to turn 16 my dad passed away from a drug overdose while we were doing tree work in Westerville Ohio. My life took a dark turn. I walked away from tree work. I chose to party to numb the feelings that my body was trying to deal with. At 17 I would find out that I was going to be a dad! Yep that’s right. I was terrified, and so was she. She was 19 and just graduated and not sure what she was wanting to do in life. I was 17 and about to be a senior in high school the next year. Needless to say we were both scared.

It’s taking a minute for me to tell you where our name comes from but also there is a meaning behind it that I believe speaks volumes. I’m giving all the glory to God for everything. Hang in there we’re getting close to wrapping it up.

As two young kids we were both terrified but we had our mind made up on one thing. We weren’t going to give up. We were young and dumb. Looking for happiness and pleasure in all the wrong places. Less than 6 months would pass by and we would become husband and wife. I was working two jobs and finishing my school online trying to make ends meet. We were living with her parents and that is the only reason we were even staying afloat. But it still wasn’t cutting it. Something had to change…. And it did.

Christmas was coming up and I was nervous. I was doing everything I could and it still wasn’t cutting it. This was going to be our first Christmas together as a married couple and within a few weeks our baby boy was going to enter into the world.

My older brother calls me out of the blue and asks me if I wanted to meet up for lunch at Arby’s on bridge street after I finished my shift at K-Mart. He said he had an opportunity he wanted to present to me. We sit down to eat and we are catching up and then he presented an offer to me. He said that him and his wife were getting some money back from their tax returns and he would loan me some money to buy some gear to get started to get back into tree work again. I shook it off at first and thanked him for his offer but told him I couldn’t. Then he said something that stuck with me and I couldn’t ignore that he was right. He simply told me that God gave me a special talent to do tree work. That I wasn’t like other people out there just trying to make a check, that I had a passion for it and that I would regret it for the rest of my life if I didn’t pursue it. So I did!

I went to our local pawn shop in Waverly Ohio and picked up some used climbing gear and a couple used saws. I ended up running into the hardware store in town and picking up a new rope and a few other little odd and end things.

This is where things get interesting. It’s time to go to work. Me, my wife and our newborn son are rolling around knocking on doors trying to advertise our new business and I’ll never forget my first customer as long as I live. He lived on rozelle creek rd on the outskirts of Chillicothe Ohio. I knocked on the door and the homeowner came outside. I told him I noticed he had a dead tree in his front yard and asked if he would like a free quote. He said” sure go ahead”. I told him for $35 I could cut the tree down and stack the firewood into a pile and the brush into a separate pile. He looked at me a said “do you have insurance?”. I was honest. I told him that I did not, that I was just starting out and didn’t have the money to get it yet but I understood if he would rather have somebody with insurance do the job. He said “you know what I appreciate your honesty go ahead and do it”. I lit up from ear to ear.

I went back to the car grabbed my gear and set my rope up in the tree. I tied the tree off to the back of our all wheel drive Subaru and put a little tension on the rope. I put the car in first gear, pulled the emergency brake and shut the car off. The rope was 100 feet long and the tree was only about 40ft tall so I knew my wife and son were perfectly safe.

I put my notch in the tree, looked and the direction I wanted it to go and started my back cut. BOOM! It fell perfectly where I wanted it to go. I got it all cut and stacked went back to the front door and told the homeowner I was done. He said “here…. there’s a little extra in there for yah. Good luck with your new business. You done a great job.”

I hurried up and ran back to the car and told my wife what happened and she was feeding our newborn in the front seat of the car. I know. This sounds about as unprofessional and as hillbilly as it gets. The homeowner had given me $40. While most of you may not think much of a 5 dollar tip… I thought the world of it because I knew my very first customer was happy with the work we provided him and that’s what it’s all about. When the tree hit the ground I felt the same lightning bolt feeling I did when I would watch my dad as a little kid and it was like he was right there with me. Hard to explain it.

After about 2 months business was really picking up and our name was starting to get out there. We had paid my brother back and thanked him for everything. Now it was time to register our business name with the state and get insurance.

God has a plan… Sometimes you truly don’t realize how much God truly is in your story until you get the chance to tell it.

We had to open a business banking account to cash checks that were written to our business name and in order to do that we had to have a legal trade name. I didn’t even have to think about it. ROCKY TOP TREE SERVICE. I wanted to keep a piece of what my dad started living by keeping the business name he created.

That’s where it came from and let me tell you this. Some of you reading this may not know us and some of you we have probably worked for over the past. We could not do what we love without your support. So from my family to yours, THANK YOU!! I love what I do and still have a passion to keep learning and education our team of how we can best serve our customers in their best interests when it comes to their trees!!

My family has grown quite a bit from the start of all of this. We now have 3 handsome boys. Lawson age 11, Sawyers age 8 and Shiloh age 16 months. Me and my beautiful wife just celebrated 12 years of marriage and are about to move into our new home where we will continue to enjoy our boys and put the the good Lord first in our lives

That should catch you all up for now!

God is good and he has a plan and a purpose for your life. Don’t be afraid to take a chance on yourself. You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. Pray it out and let God move.

God Bless you and your family!

Love, Rocky Top Tree Service Family