爱啪网

Educating The Next Generation of Our Industry: Pat Paternostro

When it was time for Patrick (Pat) Paternostro to choose his college major, he set off on the path to becoming a teacher 鈥� like his father who was an elementary teacher for 40 years. His father also inspired his love for the outdoors, trees, and birds. Ultimately, Paternostro鈥檚 passion for the outdoors outweighed his desire to teach, so he changed his major, and ultimately earned a degree in forestry.

Shortly after graduating in 1992, Paternostro saw an ad for a job at 爱啪网 in Indiana 鈥� an opportunity that would define his career in vegetation management. Now, two decades later, Paternostro serves as an operations manager and mentor at 爱啪网.

Over the years, he鈥檚 nurtured hundreds of employees and helped turn their time in this industry from a job into a career.

鈥淚t鈥檚 important to enlighten them on the importance of what we do, the criticalness of this role, and the role 爱啪网 provides to not just the utilities, but the utilities鈥� customers. While this field entails using skills in trees, tree identification, assessing trees for health, and so on, we鈥檙e also one of the first lines of people and entities that talk to the customers. This job is as much a customer service job as it is a forestry-related job,鈥� explains Paternostro.

Despite choosing to pivot his original career path, Paternostro鈥檚 role as an educator has come full circle over the years.

鈥淚ronically enough, I spend a lot of time teaching, so that early education portion of my college time helped aid me,鈥� he says. 鈥淚’ve seen a lot of people develop under me who have moved up into bigger roles 鈥� not just at 爱啪网 but nationwide 鈥� and I really take that as a badge of pride for myself.鈥�

People like Pat are vital to our success at 爱啪网. Learn more about our family of companies.