Staff & Governance

Key staff

Phil Benn – Managing Director & Founder of the TreeStation

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Phil holds qualifications in a wide range of disciplines relevant to arboriculture, forestry, biomass production and haulage. He has a BA Hons in Environmental Issues, FdSc Arboriculture and RFS Cert Arb. He is a highly qualified treeworker and has a Certificate of Professional Competence (CPC) in road haulage (transport manager). He is also qualified to operate a wide range of relevant machinery including tractors, cranes, HGVs, chippers, forwarder and multi-lift and drop vehicle (hooklift). Phil has over 15 years experience in the treework industry and over 10 years experience in wood fuel production. He also has business training after participating in the New Entrepreneur Scheme at Manchester Metropolitan University. Other directorships: Equinox Housing Co-operative Ltd, Bumblebee Woodland Trust Ltd.

 

Lee Faragher – Arboricultural Manager

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Our Arboricultural Manager, Lee Faragher, joined us in 2017. Lee is a qualified Arborist with over 20 years industry experience in both the public and private sector.  Lee spent over 12 years in Local Authority tree and woodland management, prior to taking up the position of Arboricultural Manager at Greater Manchester TreeStation.  He has a passion for all things arboriculture having studied at Reaseheath and Myerscough College.  Lee has extensive knowledge and experience in the specification, planning and undertaking of arboricultural operations on parks, highways and in housing environments in the public domain.

 

Nick Torr – Principal Arboricultural Consultant

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Nick has recently rejoined TreeStation as Principal Arboricultural Consultant after 5 years living and working in the arboricultural sector in Austria. He has 15 years industry experience and has been a practicing Arboricultural Consultant since 2012 when he achieved a first class BSc Arboriculture degree with Honours and was awarded Institute of Chartered Foresters Best Student Award.

 

Hannah Birch – Office Coordinator

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Hannah is a qualified Ecologist, with a degree in Conservation, and has been with us since 2014. She currently tries to keep the office organised and helps with the day-to-day running of things here at the Yard; it’s likely her that you’ll speak to if you drop us an email or a phone call to enquire about anything. She’s also studying towards a CIPD Level 3 in HR Practice to assist TreeStation in this area as the business grows.

Patrick Morello – Financial Director

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Patrick has worked with small businesses as a chartered accountant for the past 25 years. For the last 9 years Patrick has worked almost exclusively with Social Enterprises and Charity clients. He has also been actively involved in setting up and running a successful workers co-operative operating a wholefood shop in Derby. Patrick is a Chartered Accountant and a Chartered Tax Adviser.

Patricia Spray – Community Engagement Officer

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Other members of staff

We have two treework Team Leaders, Bill and Killian, who come out and do the initial quoting for jobs, as well as supervising the teams when they are on site. Both have many years practical experience of treework and are ticketed with all the relevant certificates, including aerial rescue and many chainsaw qualifications.
All of our staff are highly trained and qualified for their jobs, to ensure quality and safety. We employ approx. 25 people with various skillsets and interests – tree climbers, chainsaw operators, machine drivers, firewood operators and baggers, mechanics, administrative staff. All our staff are paid at least the Living Wage and they are all committed to upholding TreeStation’s ethos and helping us to achieve our goals.

 

Board of directors

The TreeStation is governed by a Board of Directors, elected by members at the AGM. The current board is made of volunteer directors with varied skills and backgrounds covering fundraising, forestry, engineering, accountancy, arboriculture, community engagement, HR and more. Our current board consists of: Phil Benn, Patrick Morrello, John Dennis, Philip Gwynne, Jack Stewart, Mike Calvert Patricia Spray, Peter Shilton-Godwin and Sue Whittle. Our directors are also employees, investors and/or customers. They are all enthusiastic about the TreeStation’s ethos of sustainability, climate change amelioration through sound management of Manchester’s tree stock, social responsibility and not-for-profit community ownership.