Want to learn to climb trees? Penn State course has you covered.

• Scott LaMar
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  Scott LaMar has worked in both radio and television for more than four decades.
  
  Currently, LaMar is the Host and Executive Producer of The Spark program on WITF-FM, 89.5 & 93.3 in Harrisburg, Pa.
  
  Previously, LaMar was WITF TV’s Sr. Public Affairs producer and produced the station’s award-winning weekly public affairs TV program, Smart Talk.
  
  In addition to his on-air duties, LaMar has moderated political candidate debates, including those for candidates running for Pennsylvania governor and the U.S. Senate and was a regular contributor to BBC World News TV before and after the 2020 U.S. Presidential election.
  
  LaMar often emcees or moderates local events and has gone as far as California to emcee a national event.
  
  The American Society of Civil Engineers honored LaMar with their national Excellence in Journalism award in 2020. He has been nominated for five Mid-Atlantic Emmy Awards.
  
  LaMar and The Spark have been recognized throughout the Central Pennsylvania community including ADVOZ Lancaster’s “Dignity in Dialogue Award”, the South-Central Assembly’s “Regional Citizen Award” and was named a “Humanitarian Hero” by The Humane Society of the United States/Pennsylvania.
  
  A native of Coatesville, Pa., LaMar has also worked as a broadcast news anchor, sports play-by-play announcer and manager.

Lumberjack with saw and harness climbing a tree

Airdate:August 26, 2022

We all climbed trees as kids. Often, our parents would warn “get down from there, you’re going to fall.” They probably didn’t know there are proper and safe ways to climb trees and that one could make a career out of climbing trees.

Penn State University has a one-of-it’s kind tree climbing school that trains would-be climbers in safety and the fundamentals of tree maintenance.

Jim Savage, an Assistant Professor of Arboriculture at Penn State has been teaching tree climbing for 28 years and was on Friday’s Smart Talk,”What we teach is the basics of how to climb a tree using ropes, saddles in a safe manner. It’s something that people have been climbing trees for a long, long time, but we now have the capability of doing it safely and adequately. The one thing is have all the equipment that we use for our schools and all of us should be using our hands and OCHA approved equipment, meaning that equipment meets certain standards and strength.”

Savage indicated the tree climbing school is not for people to just have fun climbing trees. It’s to train them for jobs and careers,”Most of them of would be with residential tree care companies, utility companies. They’re all looking for people to work. You know, we think about how we’ve expanded our our neighborhoods, our towns into the forests. People need to take care of those trees or planting trees. Somebody has to be willing to and knowledgeable how to care for this, that they’ll be around for a long time. ”

Savage said tree climbers have to recognize the characteristics of a tree before climbing and be ready for anything,”Doing an inspection before you climb a tree is really important. You know, is the tree solid, is a rotten cage. What are you going to be doing to the tree then when you’re in the tree, looking at branch connections, things live in trees, squirrels, bees. I have had unbelievable encounters with squirrels, snakes, hawks, bears, you name it. I’ve been a tree with it. So you do have to learn to recognize those things. And how do you deal with them. I’ve had mother squirrels attacking the tree because I’m too close to the nest and squirrels are very quick and very agile. I’ve had squirrels run from the back of my leg over my head and jump off my head. I had one jump in my hard hat once that would not get off. I think we were both about equally scared, but yeah, there’s a lot of crazy things that can happen.”