Sometimes we find ourselves on a road that we would have never imagined in the past. But life can be unpredictable, and the future can hold anything. Some people have a strong calling from a very young age; others get bounced around a bit until they land somewhere that just feels right. Such was the case for Kris Zorza. Looking for a job one day, owning the business shortly thereafter. “Back in 1995 I was just looking for a job and I came across Columbia Tree and figured I'd give that a try,” he said. “It was just dumb luck that it worked out this way!” Zorza took to the work quickly, and realized it was something he enjoyed doing very much. It did not hurt that he was quite good at it either. “I went into it as more of a temporary thing until something better came along, but I ended up really getting good at it,” he continued. After about six months on the job, he started to get opportunities to do the more challenging tasks in the business. “Soon I was put to the test and excelled quite well, climbing up a 100-foot tree hanging over a house and trimming some limbs.” The rest is just history, as they say. “The hard stuff intrigued me, I really got a thrill from it. This is always a challenge; it's a different job every day and that appeals to me very much.” The Hood River, Oregon-based Columbia Tree was actually established in 1992 by Steve Richter. After Zorza came on board in 1995, the company continued to grow, and Zorza along with it. After several years on the job, Richter offered him an opportunity. “Steve was getting to the point where he didn't want to keep doing that kind of work, and wanted to start something that was a little less physically demanding,” explained Zorza. “So he offered to sell me the company and I jumped at the chance.” Zorza admits that the transition was not very difficult because the company was so well established and managed. “I really walked right into a good thing,” he said. “Steve is a real go-getter and he started a great business for me to just step into.” Richter has since moved on to start a nursery and landscape business, and not surprising to Zorza, is once again successful. “He has a good size business going now; we still find opportunities to work together. Steve is just a really good guy.” Having now acquired the company, Zorza set out to mold it to his personality, and set his own goals for where he wanted the company to go. Having been born and raised in Hood River, his personal relationships were very beneficial to maintaining ambitious growth. “People in this community know me and my family, and they know my work ethic and as a result, they knew they could trust that Columbia Tree would be a reliable, dependable service. That really helped me keep things moving forward.” Columbia Tree provides precisely the kind of services one might expect-tree services. But what one might not expect is the extent to which those responsibilities can reach. “Pretty much anything other than landscaping,” Zorza defined. “We do pruning, trimming, clearing, removals, right-of-way maintenance…some of our business is commercial, but about 80% is private work.” Some of the accounts that Columbia Tree serves are quite significant. The state parks utilize their expertise to maintain park land; the Corps of Engineers also retains them for work on some parks. The Bonneville Power Administration, a federal agency that markets wholesale electricity and transmission to the Pacific Northwest, occasionally uses Zorza's company to handle some specific needs.” Large contracts aside, Columbia Tree is just as happy to handle the smaller needs as well. Homeowners and builders will have them come to single sites to prune and trim for the views. “We [Hood River] are right on the Columbia River, so views are pretty important around here,” explained Zorza. “The river, hills and Mount Hood can be pretty spectacular.” To handle these tasks, Columbia Tree maintains a crew of 3-6 people, and a stable of equipment appropriate for the task. Two aerial trucks, an Altec and a HiRanger, help to reach the tree tops. Two chip trucks and two chippers, both Morbark, keep the trimmings under control. “I've used about every flavor [of chipper] there is, and their equipment is just second to none.” Zorza's chippers are Morbark's model 18 Hurricane and model 15 Tornado. A Vermeer stump grinder rounds out their heavy equipment; most all their handheld power tools are Stihl. Having solidly established Columbia Tree as his own, Zorza was comfortable enough with his success in that business to pursue a new opportunity earlier this year. Together with a colleague, Tony Dehart, Zorza founded D&Z Grinding LLC. “Nobody here in our town really does anything like this, and Tony and I were seeing a lot of this material going to landfills or getting burned. We just feel that it's wasting a great resource.” A grinding company is clearly a natural partner for Zorza's Columbia Tree, but it works equally well for Dehart, owner of Dehart Excavation. With fifteen years of experience in the excavation business, Dehart understood the opportunity just as clearly. D&Z Grinding established their first site in late February, and have already attracted quite a bit of attention from the area. Material has been showing up pretty steadily, and they are both quite optimistic that the business will flourish. But because the site still has more work to complete, the only grinding they have done thus far is off-site, mobile work. “There is an overhead power line running across our site, and we're waiting for that to get buried before we can start grinding,” Zorza explained. “But we're expecting that to be done here within a week or so.” To handle the grinding needs of the business, Zorza and Dehart were careful to analyze all their opportunities before making their machine decision. “As we're just a start up, we knew we didn't want to invest in new equipment, so our search was immediately narrowed to used machines,” said Zorza. Turning to the internet, Zorza discovered Woodburn, Oregon-based Apollo Equipment, a leading dealer of a wide range of used machines. Apollo worked with D&Z Grinding to identify the machines that would work best for their needs, and satisfy the condition requirements within their comfort range. “We looked at a number of brands, but ultimately settled on another Morbark unit,” continued Zorza. “Again, they are a well-known quantity and we wanted to eliminate the unknowns from the business as we worked through our start-up period.” The machine, a model 1100 tub grinder, was a fantastic find. “This grinder came out of Tennessee, and only had about 1100 hours of service on it. You just don't find a used Morbark with that few hours on it.” Zorza admitted that the search for used equipment can sometimes be more difficult than purchasing new. “Finding the right machine is tough because you really need to know where it's been, what it's done, how it's been abused…because all these machines are abused pretty badly.” After feeling confident in the condition of the machine, they took delivery and began to hit the market. Much of their immediate final product is going to area nurseries to be applied as a soil restoration solution. Because the region contains a large number of orchards, blueberry growers, and other agricultural operations, their material offers highly attractive benefits to those companies. D&Z Grinding has also teamed up with a local organic composter to provide material as well, helping them make rich, organic mulches to supply area growers. But Zorza and Dehart are proceeding with some caution, quickly realizing that their operation will take a bit of trial and error to figure out all the opportunities. “As we're just fresh into this, we don't really have an established market yet, so we anticipate everything is going to change ten times over before we finally get settled,” Zorza admitted. “So just learning right now who is interested in this type of final product is key; and right now the nurseries and growers are the largest potential.” The product that D&Z Grinding is delivering is ground so finely, that the nurseries are able to mix it with soil to make the dirt supplement that has strong potential for the region. Another challenge Zorza and Dehart knew they would be facing is the competition with burning allowances. “Burning is still allowed around here, so we still have to face that competition for material,” he continued. “We can't compete with it on a pricing side, but the end product we make has value and that alone helps quite a bit. But we're also seeing more and more regulations surrounding burning, and at some point, we expect that it will likely be eliminated.” Zorza points to California as the trend-setting example for the Northwest's environmental progress. But between Columbia Tree and Dehart Excavating alone, there will clearly be plenty of material for D&Z Grinding to work with. Already, D&Z Grinding is looking forward and scouting the opportunity to establish additional sites in the area. With their first site all but completed, the other side of the Columbia River is next on their list. “We'd like to ultimately have three sites established…our current site here in Hood River, one across the river in Bingen [Washington], and a third up stream a ways in The Dalles.” Discussions have already begun on getting those sites established. It takes vision, risk-taking, and of course a good bit of luck, to blaze into never-before pursued opportunities. But those who have the courage to jump in are most often those who are appropriately rewarded. Kris Zorza backed into a great opportunity when he took a job with Columbia Tree on a whim, and he ended up owning the business. Likewise, his partnership with Tony Dehart in D&Z Grinding also represents the same degree of vision and risk-taking. The only missing ingredient thus far is the luck, but somehow, hard work and good decision making always seem to be met with a little luck. With that, D&Z Grinding is sure to have a bright future ahead.