About Nathan Lawrence

From climbing trees on the family farm, to caring for trees in the family nursery, to pruning fruit trees in the family orchard when he was a kid growing up in Tigard, Nathan’s life has centered around trees. When he was 13, he built a two-story tree house 25 feet up in an eight-trunked maple tree, where he often enjoyed spending the night. Also at age 13, he started his own business business trimming the neighbor’s fruit and ornamental trees and shrubs. He worked his way through college planting, removing and pruning trees and shrubs in the family landscaping business. For several years, he had a weekly gardening column that was published in several Portland area newspapers. In the mid-1980s he became an OSU Master Gardener, and he did a series of television shows on how to care for plants. In 1985, he started a business that evolved into a full-fledged tree care company.

Over the decades, Nathan has done everything from owning a logging company to mastering the art of fine Japanese style pruning techniques. He has climbed tens of thousands of trees and ground out thousands stumps. He literally knows trees from the below the ground to the top of their crowns. He can even identify many trees by their smell and taste. In his spare time, he cultivates bonsai trees, and is an amateur expert on wild edible plants. He also maintains his own private Japanese botanical garden with more than 150 species of plants. When he can, he travels the world visiting botanical and Japanese gardens in such places as Italy, England, Ireland, Spain, Scotland, Switzerland, Canada, Belize, Honduras, Mexico, Alaska, Hawaii and other U.S. states. He is always in search of big, exotic and interesting trees and gardens, and then showcases  his discoveries on his YouTube channel to share with the world. He also makes training videos on pruning techniques and plant health care that are watched by thousands of people worldwide.

As an ISA Certified Arborist, ISA Tree Risk Assessment Qualified (TRAQ), OSU Master Gardener, and State Registered Commercial Pesticide Applicator, and plant health care specialist, put Nathan’s decades of experience in the care of plants in the Portland Metro region to work for you when you hire Good News Tree Service, Inc. to care for your trees and shrubs the next time.

About Jared Lawrence

Jared is a third generation tree and plant care specialist. His grandfather started the family nursery and landscaping business in Tigard, Oregon more than 60 years ago, and now Jared continues the family tradition as an arborist. He helps to run the family tree service that Nathan, his father, started in 1985.

His career as an arborist started when he was six years old dragging brush and doing clean-up on his parents’ tree service. Little-by-little, while advancing in age, he learned to run all of his father’s equipment from chain saws to brush chippers. Along the way, he took business classes at a local community college. Before long, he was pruning and then climbing trees, and has become a highly accomplished tree and ornamental shrub aesthetic pruner in the Japanese style. 

Reaching for new heights, Jared became a high-climbing arborist, the crew leader and project supervisor in the family business. He, along with his father, has earned his credentials as an ISA Certified Arborist. Jared continues the quest to improve his arboricultural skills by learning new techniques, taking classes, attending conferences and seminars and through multiple other educational opportunities.

Why Choose Good News Tree Service, Inc.?

Prompt service. We respond quickly to your inquiries—usually immediately or by the end of the day.

We are a locally owned family business. When you call us, the owner of the company will answer—not an office staffer or salesperson. Therefore, our family name and reputation is at stake incentivizing us to provide the best customer care experience possible. Moreover, most of our clients are within 15 minutes of our base of operations, so it costs us less to get to your job site.

Two ISA Certified Arborists on Staff. Nathan and Jared are a father and son ISA Certified Arborist team. Nathan manages the company and Jared manages the crew. Sandi, Nathan’s wife, is our Chief Financial Officer, so Nathan and Jared can focus on running the business.

We are small company. We do not believe that bigger is necessarily better. When companies get too large, something is usually lost along the way. We have purposely stayed small and chosen, by design, to work a smaller geographical area, so that we can give better service to our clients. We believe in quality over quantity.

No commissioned sales people. You will not find us trying to upsell you on arboriculture services. We take the extra time to answer all your questions free-of-charge, to provide you with the most up-to-date, science-based information regarding tree care issues, and then discuss all the alternatives. We then let you decide what, when or if. There is no high-pressure selling, and no peddling our services based on fear or a client’s lack of knowledge regarding tree issues.

Our company is debt free. Why is is this a selling  point? Because we own all of our equipment, our profit margin is lower and we can pass the cost-savings on to you.

We stay educated. Arboriculture or tree care is an ever-growing and evolving science. Our understanding of trees and technology used to care for them is way different now than it was 30 of 40 years ago, and it continues to change. Therefore, it is important for us to stay educated, which is why we regularly attend seminars, workshops, conferences and participate in online learning experiences to keep up to date.

Price versus value. The cheapest is not always the best. In the long run, quality and value for the money spent is the better choice. How do we aim to give you the most value for your money? In several ways.

• We educate our clients for free on how to take better care for their trees and shrubs.
• We give free consultations over the phone, even if we don’t get the job.
• Our clean up is second to none. We leave our job sights in an immaculate state—equal to our better than we found it.
• We communicate. We promptly return phone calls. We let you know when we will be there and when we’ll be done, so you can plan accordingly.
• We keep our word.
• We don’t over-promise and under-deliver.
• If we can’t do it, we’ll tell you, and refer you to someone who can.
• If there’s another way to do it that’s better for you economically, we’ll tell you, even if we don’t get a job out of it.
• We go above and beyond by attempting to give you a little more than what you paid for. We’ll climb a little higher, prune a little more, clean up a little better than what we bid to do.
• We do not raise our prices even if the job takes longer than we expected.

We provide old-fashioned service and golden rule-based business ethics while using modern, state-of-the-art technology and cutting-edge arboriculture techniques and information to care for your trees and shrubs.

Call us today for a free consultation or price quote at 503.789.9881