Tree Intelligence Built From Experience

ABOUT US

Tree IQ was founded on a simple observation. Most organizations don’t have a tree problem.

They have a visibility problem.

For years, our team managed tree care for some of the nation’s largest manufactured housing portfolios through our sister company, NPS Tree Experts. Along the way, we documented more than 140,000 trees, performed over $50 million in tree care, and supported millions of dollars in insurance claims recovery.

What became clear was operators didn’t need another tree contractor, they needed better actionable information.

Tree IQ was created to provide portfolio leaders with something they had never truly possessed before: complete visibility into one of the largest unmanaged sources of operational risk.

Today, Tree IQ combines arboricultural expertise, data analytics, insurance documentation, and strategic planning to help operators reduce emergency spending, improve capital allocation, and protect infrastructure across their portfolios.

Our mission is simple:
Help portfolio operators scope tree risk through visibility and data before it becomes a significant cost.

Founder Story

Nick Lefke

Founder & CEO, TREE IQ

For more than two decades, Nick Lefke has worked where tree risk becomes reality:  in manufactured housing communities, RV resorts, outdoor hospitality properties, golf courses, and multi-site portfolios across the country.

As the founder of NPS Tree Experts, Nick and his team managed millions of dollars in tree removal, pruning, storm response, and long-term canopy maintenance for some of the nation’s largest property owners. They responded to FEMA hurricane sites, derechos, tornadoes, ice storms, and countless emergency calls where a single fallen tree disrupted operations, damaged infrastructure, and created unexpected financial exposure.

Over hundreds of projects, Nick began to notice something that changed the trajectory of his career.  The most expensive trees weren’t the ones that failed during a storm.  They were the ones everyone wished they had identified years earlier.  Time after time, operators found themselves asking the same questions:

“How did we not know this tree was a risk?”
“Why are we always reacting instead of planning?”
“How can we budget for something we can’t see?”

Nick realized the problem wasn’t a lack of qualified tree contractors.  It was a lack of visibility.

Property operators had sophisticated systems for tracking occupancy, utilities, maintenance, capital improvements, and financial performance, yet one of the largest sources of preventable operational risk—the tree canopy—remained largely unmanaged.

That realization became TREE IQ.

Built on years of field experience and a proprietary database documenting more than 140,000 trees across 38 states, Tree IQ transforms arboricultural expertise into strategic business intelligence. Rather than simply responding to emergencies, the company helps portfolio leaders understand where risk exists, prioritize investments, support insurance decisions, and build long-term tree management strategies that reduce volatility and protect infrastructure.

Today, Nick continues to work alongside operators scoping smarter ways to manage one of the most overlooked assets in their portfolios: their tree canopy.

Jake Marsh

Head of Sales

Jake Marsh earned his Bachelor of Science in Psychology from Denison University. He began his career with NPS as a groundman on one of the company’s first traveling crews, later advancing to crew leader and eventually becoming head of the production department. In that role, he scaled the traveling-crew operation from one crew to four, with a primary focus on manufactured housing communities and hurricane-response work. Jake now leads the Tree IQ and NPS sales team.

Be sure to ask him about knots!

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