An office job has never appealed to New Arborist of the Year, Jordan Sutherland.
Weekends growing up always involved tramping, mountain biking and making the most of the Canterbury countryside with his parents. So much so that Jordan initially wanted to be a Department of Conservation ranger.
That was until an arborist was needed at work, prompting a career re-think.
“I stumbled into this really. Being an arborist wasn't really a career pathway in school.
“I worked with an arborist when I was a park ranger, and he brought in all his tools, and I thought it was pretty cool. Then an apprenticeship popped up at Tree Tech, and I started in July 2022.”
Since then Jordan has worked his way up the ladder of one of the South Island’s largest arborist businesses, to become second climber and he has recently started to run his own crew.
And the sky may well be the limit for this high achiever, who smashes his goals.
“All through high school I did outdoor ed, and I did a lot of tramping and mountain biking with Mum and Dad. And I was pretty serious with my mountain biking.
“I did nationals and Oceania events. Now I do more sort of multi-sport,” he says humbly, before revealing his success in the intensive Coast to Coast competition this year.
“I won my category [under 23s], and I got second overall in the two-day individual. It was my first time as an individual, I've done that as a team in 2021.”
Competing solo meant the now 22-year-old had to learn how to kayak. “I was already pretty good at running and biking, they were my strengths. But I still did pretty well.”
Indeed. He was sixth overall in. the 55km circuit and 7th in the 67km circuit.
Adding to the awards accolades is Young Arborist of the Year, meaning Jordan will now compete in the prestigious Young Horticulturist of the Year, a competition involving six horticultural sectors, in Auckland in November.
He is looking forward to the challenge, and will have recently returned from a two-month trip to Europe keen to have a new goal.
“I think I will enjoy doing this, because it will give me another avenue to pursue, and I think it will go well towards my career pathway as well.
“I love what I do. It's fairly practical. It's mainly on the tools. We do a lot of planting and young tree maintenance, removing trees, pruning trees and power line clearance. We have book work that we do outside of work hours, and a few off site courses as well.
“It's fun being out on the tools every day, but I can definitely see that maybe in 10 years or when I get a bit older and everything hurts a bit more, I'll probably be looking at an office job – doing tree assessments and tree reports for council.”
His parents recently sold their own mechanics business, so he has seen the work required to manage a business – so it has left him in two minds.
“There’s potentially avenues to go into consultancy. I can definitely see it being my career for life.”
