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Quality Throughout: proven Professionals
David Edwards is Tilhill Forestry’s District Manager for Wales & Marches having joined Tilhill Forestry in 2003. We spoke to David as a long-standing Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Foresters and their elected President.
Q. How long have you been an ICF member?
A. I have been a Professional Member since 1987 and Fellow since 1997.
Q. What qualities do you consider you bring to the ICF as their President?
A. I bring 35 years experience of working in the Private Sector in Scotland, England and Wales including in Utility Aboriculture (remember ICF is the Institute for Foresters and Arboriculturalists). Personal qualities are more for others to say but I would like to think integrity, professional and credible are in there somewhere along with a sense of humour!
Q. Why do you think that having ICF status as a forester is so important for a) the individual and b) the company they work for?
A. For the individual being Chartered provides status amongst your peers, clients and employers that you are recognised as a Professional Forester/ Arboriculturalist. Membership gives access to training and CPD events through a Regional Structure and a mechanism for recording CPD to demonstrate managers are maintaining their competencies.
For the Company it does the same but provides that confidence to clients for the Company as a whole rather than just for the individual. Having a high membership rate amongst staff gives confidence to clients and potential clients of the Company’s professional status.
Q. In your opinion, how do our ICF achievements benefit our customers?
A. It provides an ‘Assurance Standard’ that the ‘quality’ of our managers has been assessed by an outside body as being competent and that these standards are being maintained through a code of ethics. In the unlikely event things go wrong it does give customers an alternative avenue for complaint.
Read or download the full ‘Leader’ article in this PDF.
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