Cortland was born in CA and started climbing trees at the age of 17 through his family owned business. He joined the army after attending Sac State and was deployed a year later. While in Iraq Cortland was a part of a 9 man QRF team. After his deployment he was looking for that same sort of camaraderie and could only find it within the tree industry. He is now running his own tree company and learning as much as he can about training.