Leadership
Brennen Manns
Founder and Owner-Operator
Biography
Brennen Manns, arborist and owner-operator, is the person a contracting officer can reach on site.
Brennen Manns, arborist and founder of The Arborist, served as a sniper section leader in the United States Army from June 2014 to February 2019. The work trained a specific set of habits: identify the target, calculate the variables, determine the trajectory, operate inside a constrained window with people present, and hold a low tolerance for uncontrolled outcomes. None of that translates directly into arboriculture. All of it informs how the work is planned and executed.
He founded The Arborist in 2024 to do the vegetation work that most contractors decline: hazard tree removal and risk mitigation on federally managed land where the site cannot shut down, the resource cannot be damaged, and the window to do the work is measured in hours. The firm is built around one discipline, applied across five operational environments, to a single standard on every site.
He is an owner-operator, not an office principal. He is on site for the work, not behind a desk for the paperwork. That directness is the operating model of the firm. Every contract action in the portfolio was delivered as prime, across 4+ federal agencies, with the same approach: read the site, write the plan, execute it, and leave the ground in better condition than it was found.
The firm is headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri, and operates on federally managed land nationwide. The portfolio spans 16+ federal sites across 11+ states, delivered under awards with the National Park Service, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the National Cemetery Administration, and the USDA Forest Service. The record is 27+ contract actions and zero damage incidents.
The military background shows up in the tone of the work rather than its marketing. Target identification becomes tree risk assessment. Load and trajectory calculation becomes rigging and crane planning. Operating inside a constrained window with people present becomes working a live federal site without closing it. The discipline is the same. The application is different.
How the work gets done
Credentialed supervision, a small crew, and the owner on every award.
The Arborist operates with credentialed supervision at the company level, a small crew, and direct owner involvement on every contract action. The firm does not scale by adding crews it cannot directly oversee. It scales by taking on the work it can hold to standard, and declining the work it cannot.
Every contract action in the portfolio, 27+ of 27+, was delivered as prime. The same approach applies on each one: a job hazard assessment before the first cut, a tree risk assessment on every target, a written rigging or crane plan where the drop zone is constrained, and daily site restoration so the ground is presentable at close of work. The owner is on site for the decisions that determine whether the job stays inside the margin.
Standards the work is held to
Credentials and standards verified on every contract action.
| Standard or credential | What it governs |
|---|---|
| ISA BCMA supervision | Work is supervised by an ISA Board Certified Master Arborist on staff, a credential held by fewer than 1,300 professionals worldwide. Oversight maintained at the company level. |
| ISA TRAQ Qualified | Tree Risk Assessment Qualified risk evaluation and target analysis before any removal. |
| ANSI A300 | Industry standard for tree care operations, pruning, and management on federal sites. |
| ANSI Z133 | Safety requirements for arboricultural operations, including rigging, felling, and crew safety. |
| ATAK enabled field mapping | Precision targeting and site mapping for fuel load removal and hazard tree identification. |
| Biomonitor environmental compliance | Protected species monitoring and environmental compliance support during active operations. |
Talk to us
Download the capability statement and talk to the person who will be on site.
You can also review the federal past performance record, read about teaming and self-performance, or learn how the firm was built before you reach out.