"Nothing compares to actually being up there:" MATC horticulture students get valuable experience

MATC horticulture students get valuable experience

MATC horticulture students get valuable experience

WAUWATOSA -- For any kid who loves climbing trees, this is the job for you.

“It’s the best career," says Mike Wendt. "It’s a wonderful career.”

Wendt is an instructor in the landscape horticulture program at Milwaukee Area Technical College, which trains professional arborists.

“Trees just serve such a valuable ecological service," student Johanna Smith says. "It’s kind of an honor to go into a career where you can make sure that we have trees in our cities.”

On this day, they were pruning branches high above a cemetery in Wauwatosa.

“ focusing here in the cemetery taking out large deadwood," Wendt explains. "The kind of branches that may fall out and hurt somebody, hit a car or something like that.”

It’s the result of a mutually beneficial partnership between MATC and the cemetery.

“We’re a small, non-profit cemetery and we don’t have the money to do this kind of stuff on a regular basis," says Wauwatosa Board of Trustees member Dan Jones. "This is thousands and thousands of dollars’ worth of work that they’re doing, and we are so appreciative.”

And the students, in turn, get invaluable experience up in the trees.

“There’s a lot of great information out there to read," says Smith. "But nothing compares to actually being up there and having to make those decisions, up in the air."

A new understanding and new appreciation for a career that is truly one-of-a-kind.

“We get to go places nobody else has ever been," Wendt says. "I bet that oak up there has never seen a person put boots on the bark where those students are right now. It’s really kind of a cool thing.”