FALMOUTH – Since the 1940s, three men named Arthur Batson have been senior executives at tree care company Lucas Tree Experts.
First there was Arthur Batson Sr., an Army engineer who joined the business in the 1940s.
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Next came his son Arthur Batson Jr., now 63. He started working at Lucas Tree in high school, purchased most of the company in the 1980s and is now president.
In 2004, Batson Jr.’s son, Arthur Batson III, joined the company and is now chief financial officer.
The Batson family originally came from Addison, but later moved to Portland.
During World War II, Batson Sr. was working with the Army Corps of Engineers, managing the installation of telecommunications lines between Portland and the Casco Bay islands. Lucas Tree was a contractor on the project.
Batson Jr. said the Hinman family, which then owned Lucas Tree, asked his father to join the company in the late 1940s.
“He thought it over and said he would, but he wanted an opportunity to buy the business,” said Batson Jr.
The Hinmans agreed, and eventually sold 10 percent of Lucas Tree to Batson Sr., who would become Lucas Tree’s general manager.
Batson Jr. started working at the company during summers while in high school. He later went to Merrimack College and earned an MBA from Suffolk University in Boston.
Then, the Hinmans asked Batson Jr. to join the team.
Like his father, he agreed on one condition: “I’d really only want to come in if I had an opportunity to own the business,” he told the Hinmans.
Another deal was struck.
Batson Jr., who lives in Falmouth, started supervising Lucas Tree work crews in 1971 and became general manager when his father retired in 1979. Batson Sr. died in 1997 at age 87.
He bought the Hinmans out of the business in the 1980s, and later sold minority shares to Peter Marion, Lucas Tree vice president and chief operating officer, and to former Chief Financial Officer Dick Haskell.
Batson III, 35, grew up in Falmouth and also worked summers at Lucas Tree. He attended Villanova University in Pennsylvania, where he graduated with a degree in finance.
After school Batson III took a job with intellectual property consulting firm InteCap Inc. in New York City.
He lived on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, but later moved to Boston and commuted on the Delta Shuttle weekly to New York for work.
But after seven years in the job, Batson wanted a change and moved back to Maine.
He began working again at Lucas Tree company in 2004, and succeeded Haskell, who passed away in 2005.
Batson III is now the top financial officer and part owner at Lucas Tree. He lives in Portland with his wife Susan and 19-day-old daughter, Allie.
“I always knew I would come back to Maine. The quality of life was what I was looking for,” he said.
Jonathan Hemmerdinger can be reached at 791-6316 or:
jhemmerdinger@mainetoday.com
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