Summit

[Bearmate]

Can someone tell me what's the point with Summit saying they are the "best dawn treeplanting company" in Canada?

I worked for them 2 years ago and I wasn't impress at all.
They should stop showing that much arrogance.

[Jdog]

I've also witnessed ads posted by Summit saying and I quote "all our trees are direct award". Its just not the case, but I guess reality is subjective so.....

[Captain Slashpile]

Hey its the captain here ......check jdogs ad here in the jobs section .......sounds like where we wanna be......have you seen my smoothie glass around ......I think shielas feeding the deer with it ....... dont go to summit unless you want anne marie driving you up the wall....CEST VRAI! CEST VRAI! If I dont see you in a camp this summer itll be a tragedy .......pass the cream pork flavor......

[Bearmate]

Have you consider to go back with you know who. It look like they might need your help with their big piles of non-burning slash.
Baldy is missing you, how can he start his war on terror without you in the trenches.
Look like my first dilema of the year and it starting with you know who.
Come back he said, suivez le guide y disait...where are we going?

[Kelley]

There seems to be a lot of Summit bashing on this website. I'm definitely far from an expert as this will only be my third season (one season at Summit, one at Folklore), but I definitely wouldn't say they are the worst company. It's also important to keep in mind that I only planted with them for one season, and Summit is a big company, so my experience might not be consistent for every planter who works for them.

It is true that you have to work hard to get anything there, but if you do, when you ask for something like a price increase you don't feel like your request is rude or unfair. That's not to say that any slut can bitch about the price and expect to get what he wants, but if you work hard and show that you are a fair minded person, in my experience, your request will likely be granted. You have to work for what you get, but at least that way the people who deserve better prices, because they work harder and plant good trees, are respected and get good work. Maybe this approach isn't the best one for everybody. I'm sure there are plenty of people who get by much better at other companies where everyone gets treated very nicely and no one ever says boo about the prices for fear of being impolite. But I think it makes perfect sense to reward the people who work the hardest and who are the best planters. They are the ones who are doing the real leg work after all (literally).

[krahn]

i did a small warm-up contact with them last year, and it was alright. about what i expected from summit. not the worst prices, not the best, about the same as seneca or sometimes a cent more. the management was a bit overconfident in the status of their company i'd agree. and it might be very crew dependent. but overall, i was treated well and i'd work for them again on certain contracts, if i didn't have anything amazing going on elsewhere.

[Stiffarm]

Hey i did a couple of seasons for summit back in the day. Not the greatest, but I have a graph comparing the prices and $ from Summit (2007) and Dynamic Reforestation (2008). Summit was mostly hectare planting so the I had to plant some really low density to get these prices over the .12c average they quoted us. Also, in 2008, I was working with Northern Refo from day 55 onwards. Anyways I hope this helps out anyone looking at the company, they're pretty organized and big so its not bad if your 1st or 2nd year but if you like making money I would recommend somewhere else.

[Greg M.]

Hey i did a couple of seasons for summit back in the day. Not the greatest, but I have a graph comparing the prices and $ from Summit (2007) and Dynamic Reforestation (2008). Summit was mostly hectare planting so the I had to plant some really low density to get these prices over the .12c average they quoted us. Also, in 2008, I was working with Northern Refo from day 55 onwards. Anyways I hope this helps out anyone looking at the company, they're pretty organized and big so its not bad if your 1st or 2nd year but if you like making money I would recommend somewhere else.

excellent work stiffarm!

[Scooter]

I think Summit just won the BCTS Houston contract for 2009+ at 21.5 cent average to the company, untreated ground. A little over a million spring trees, and 700K for summer.

[Screefhead]

No real surprise there, Summit and Windfirm have been underbidding brutally the last few years in the Vanderhoof to Smithers area. My guess is those will all be 10c trees.

Last time i planted in Houston the prices were the same, people pretty much maxxed out at $300, the majority just cleared $200. That was for Silvaram not Scummit , though I think they are the same general contracts.

[Scooter]

The last time I was in Houston, I planted 3700 by 2pm in a 13 cent burn. Possibly 1996. They asked for full shovel screefs in the burn, which slowed me down. Possibly my favorite day of planting, ever. Mind you, I liked the block, so I slept on it. The good old days ...

[Scooter]

By the way, that was the last block on the contract, and we finished it at 2pm. I had been hoping for 5k that day, which would have been the first time I'd ever hit 5k, if it had actually happened. I didn't quit early on purpose.

[beeps]

Tell me more about summit, anybody who has worked there at all. I've planted in Ontario and will likely work for summit this year out west.

[ekim]

Tell me more about summit, anybody who has worked there at all. I've planted in Ontario and will likely work for summit this year out west.

Well if they are doing BCTS for just over 21 cents, don't expect to make much money.

I had a bad experience doing BCTS last season through FFS(Forests For Tomorrow), worked my freeking but of for a measly $160 a day, and this was around average on the crew(I was working injured, but even our highballers only made abot $200 a day). I was averaging around $300+ before the contract.

This was not through Summit, and we were paid 15 cents, so if they are working on anything like what I worked on last season, at 10 cents the crew may become very small, very quick.

[Richianity]

Owner is seriously type A.

Not necessarily a positive or a negative I suppose though.

[informavore]

I'm a six year vet who spent one season with Summit and here's my general impression:

Contracts were terrible and prices where very low. I realize its a difficult time for the industry as a whole but Summit had lower prices than other companies working similar contracts in the same region. I was told all their contracts were direct awards, but word in the industry was that Tim was lowballing everyone else to get contracts. Many of them were Ministry jobs, with typical low prices, uneven specs, and often featuring unpaid walk-in access.

They still use crummies. I was used to choppers or crew cabs efficiently ferrying planters to different parts of blocks, or even different blocks. Not so with Summit. Everyone went everywhere together in the most inefficient way, making for lots of wait and considerable downtime.

Their crews were too big (mine was 20 people). This was too many planters for the foreman to handle efficiently. It led to problems with cash placement and resupply. Need your cash moved? Sorry too busy, you'll just have to deadwalk. 20 people on a block also eats it up rapidly, and we often ended up in cluster plants and had to move often, again wasting time.

They weren't terribly organized and were unable to keep their cooks happy. One quit while another, hired as a last minute replacement, had to be fired for completely unprofessional behavior.

The good: One of their cooks, Jeremy, is without a doubt the very best there is in the biz. Their camps for some reason were always filled with planters who were exceptional musicians, which made for some good vibes. Also this: a ping pong table in every camp.

Might be a good starter company for rookies, but I recomment that serious vets look for something better, as I have done this year.

[madddave]

Planted two seasons with Summit.

Had some good contracts, even more bad ones. What was a good contract the first year was the worst the next. Got stuck on a "bail-out" contract for NGR, where the summit crew stayed in NGR camp and got paid a penny less than NGR planters that were in the same camp. Reason for the penny less was NGR was charging summit $45 per planter for camp costs. Great food tho. Before the bail out, we were in Ootsa lake, then the bail-out contract for 10 planting days in hinton, then drove back to the ootsa lake area for bout 5 days, then back out to the same area in hinton. Each move took bout two days. The hinton contract the year previous was great, fresh prep, decent prices. The past season, over-grown "prep" for less than humane. Needless to say as soon as i found out that the forests in BC were burning up, i jumped ship and was fighting fire within a day of the last tree that I planted.

although i did get some great days with summit the last year, 3k at 12 on day four of the season. 3k at 14 burns. didn't quite avg out to a decent season. A little dissapointed with the contract situation last year

[willalot]

i planted one season with them and it was my third year when joined their company and i met great disappointment. I got stuck on a rookie crew that was a gong show with people 2 months in who didn't know how to flag a line or stay in their own land. The veteran crew bosses got the best pics of all the good land and though i was the crew highballer i barely scratched 200 a day. The owner of the company seemed stand up and spoke words of being the best company which now looking back seems to be pure arrogance. The kicker was they didn't pay me for all my trees and ignored my emails once the season was done. Summit is a rookie factory that will look in your eye, smile, and then stab you in the back.

[aaron]

The kicker was they didn't pay me for all my trees and ignored my emails once the season was done. Summit is a rookie factory that will look in your eye, smile, and then stab you in the back.

Word, i dealt with the same thing, i was only there for their summer plant but i still found major errors on paychecks

[Coaster]

Not getting paid everything you were promised is not okay. That's what Labor relations is for. If they owe you LRB will force them to pay and then may audit them to ensure they've paid everyone else. Do yourselves and all planters who may work for Summit in the future a favor and make them live up to their promises.

[alex]

I planted a couple of years with Summit, and was lucky enough to have a great foreman. This meant no wait times for trees, good organization, and a solid crew (minus the obligatory creamer who pissed everyone off). After speaking to planters on other crews, it became clear that my experience was very uncommon.

Paycheques: I found errors on my paycheques, sometimes legitimate errors (i.e. 235 trees entered instead of 2350 trees), and sometimes a blatantly wrong entry (i.e. 165 trees instead of 2400). If you work at Summit, keep a copy of all your tallies and compare it to your paycheque. I found between $500 and $600 worth of errors last season.

Prices: usually mediocre, especially around Smithers, which is where the company is located. Tim (owner) seems to want every possible contract in the area, even if it is a poor one. Supposedly the industry is recovering, but I'm sure prices will still remain low this season. Generally, the supervisors barely even view the block, and prices don't change by piece, even if someone is in trenches and another is planting in rock. Sometimes foremen are given an extra discretionary cent to make up for this (ahem, conflict of interest?), but it is rare.

Crummies: I generally don't mind them, but I agree with the efficiency argument against their use. It is a pain to start 20 minutes after the first people out of the crummy, and have to finish earlier as well. Time is money. I ended up driving a pickup with trees and a quad in the back for most of the season (on special missions), driving as many as 5 other people to the block for no extra pay (and the same tree prices). That was definitely frustrating.

Cooks: Jeremy is the best cook you will ever have. Mark is not far behind.

Overall, I would say it's a good place to start as a rookie. Once you get the hang of planting though, you may feel that you could do better elsewhere.

[ljextremeforestgardener]

N.A

[right_arm]

Later during the herbicide spraying season I met a mill checker in Hinton who had a friend planting for Blue Collar in High Level during this same season. He told me that they were getting .12 for trenches. Ware as Summit was paying us .11 for raw, .10 prep, and .09 for hoe rips.

Your friend was misinformed. This past season they paid .12 for raw and .11 for all types of prep.