Deering Tree Service flies flags on the Fourth
From staff reports
Before the parades, the picnics and the fireworks begin, a telltale sign of Fourth of July in Leelanau County are the flags flying aloft Deering Tree Service’s green crane truck and bucket truck on the busy corner of M-72 and Maple City Road.
The Deering brothers who co-own the company—Josh, 43, Jack, 39, and Patrick, 34—have flown the Stars and Stripes 80 feet in the air each Independence Day ever since they moved to that intersection in 2012. Deering Tree Service has nearly 50 employees, and whoever drives the crane truck on that day is responsible for raising the flag.
“We’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback, especially from veterans,” said Josh. “They always appreciate us doing it on the Fourth.”
Deering Tree Service turns 50 years old in 2023. Their father Tom Deering, who was 23 in 1973, cut firewood to heat his home near Maple City, then realized he could get paid for cutting firewood for other people. He was a one-man outfit at first, then picked up several employees during the 1980s. Tom’s services were sought after once Dutch elm disease began infecting local trees. By the early ’90s he offered plant healthcare, tree fertilizing and insecticide work. Josh and Jack, who worked informally for their dad by picking up sticks or raking since they were five or six years old, both joined the company full time after graduating from Glen Lake School.
With more Deering hands at the helm, the growth spurt began. They began accumulating trucks, and expanded service throughout the region. In 2009, the Deerings launched a division of the company that produces and sells landscape mulch. A forest management division followed in 2011. From 2005 until 2018 they offered a large tree planting service.
Deering Tree Service now boasts 140–150 trucks and pieces of equipment, and employ workers from as far as Benzie, Kalkaska, Mancelona, Mesick, Manton, and Lake City. Josh runs the company’s residential division and consistently logs 60–70-hour weeks; Jack runs the forest management and logging division, and Patrick runs the mulch and wood recycling division.
