Tree Army owners graduate from Boss Up program

Riverdale’s Nick and Joelle Lynch were among the many veteran-owned business owners who graduated recently from the New York City “Boss Up” Veteran Entrepreneurship Program.

Their company, Tree Army, is one of eight such small businesses to receive a $20,000 “Boss Up” challenge grant after completing the program sponsored by the New York City departments of small business services and veterans’ services and Kerry Moelis Family Foundation. That foundation committed $180,000 to support the Boss Up program, which concluded with the Feb. 6 graduation.

Tree Army, which is tree removal, pruning, planting and emergency response business, hires transitioning veterans and dependents. It was founded on the premise of helping veterans reintegrate into the community, as well as gain new life skills.

Tree Army was nominated for the honor after having won Best in Business for the Bronx through the Bronx Chamber of Commerce. Both Nick and Joelle Lynch served in the U.S. Army.

The $20,000 grant was used by Tree Army to build a common office for veterans with disabilities, ranging from physical disabilities to immobilized veterans, who can still work but can’t do physical aspects of the job, but can do office administration work.

“We built them a good space where they can operate and get paid, keep a job and still be good members of the society that we have here today,” Tree Army co-owner and co-founder Nick Lynch said.

The company started in about 2015 and has been growing ever since. In 2017, they sent trucks down to Puerto Rico during Hurricane Maria and spent about seven months down there working to help people in need. According to Nick Lynch, the events in Puerto Rico put the company on the map and gave them the experience they needed to learn and develop the company.

Lynch mentioned he got the idea from being frustrated with some of the larger organizations that don’t help veterans and asking for monthly subscriptions.

“The premise is to hold the hand of the veteran and absolutely walk them through the process ourselves,” he said. “We take the veteran, we pay them for their time, we pay them to go get help with mental health and we pay them to sit down and go through the classes for the transition. The reason why we did this is because no one else is doing it.”

But when a veteran walks into Tree Army, they get to keep their rank. Everything that the company works on at Tree Army is an offshoot of what veterans learn in the military. From hand, and eye signals to verbal language, the company mirrors much of the same things that you would be done in the military.

“We understand what it’s like to have moments of just feeling different,” Lynch said. “We have the understanding of what combat was like, we have the understanding of what the transition was like we have the understanding of what it’s like to put on a uniform, we have the understanding of what it’s like to be a soldier.”

J.D. Santiago, an employee of Tree Army, has known Lynch for more than 20 years, as “battle buddies” in the military. Santiago was medically discharged from the military, was homeless for a while, and was not allowed to do much work since he had 20 injuries. Lynch somehow found him and gave him a part-time job. Over the years, Santiago couldn’t physically work as much, but that didn’t stop Tree Army from accommodating him and giving him an administration job.

“You know, it’s amazing to me, he’s (Lynch) always been like that,” Santiago said. “He’s got a gift for making something out of nothing.”

Santiago told The Riverdale Press the importance of the grant and how it will help the veteran community.

“It’s going to benefit them in many ways, you know, one equipment-wise and through the equipment it will help us hire more veterans that you know, have a hard time out there,” he said. “Tree Army tries to make sure that we make the workplace accommodating for the disabled veterans, out there especially like myself. One of our single goals is to help the veterans out there that don’t know what to do.”