Andrew backpacking in Virginia.
Our work w ith the Urban
Forestr y 2020 project
found that of ten times the
f irst step on the urban
forestr y career ladder
is missing. I credit the
SM A inter nship program
w ith shepherding me
past this broken r ung.
takes care of those trees. My favorite part of the job
is tree planting and the tree identification walks I give.
Those are the times when I feel like I am making a lasting
positive difference in the community, which is my orig-
inal motivation for being involved in municipal work.
I'm very happy to have found a place in the profes-
sion of urban forestry. This is an exciting time for the
profession, which is changing and growing so much
and so quickly. However, another finding of the Urban
Forestry 2020 research was that urban foresters are still
building our niche in the urban arena among city plan-
ners, engineers, and landscape architects. I believe SMA
is crucial in this process. We need passionate profes-
sionals to make our case and prove the value of urban
forestry. This is why SMA generally and internship pro-
grams specifically are so important and why I hope to
be much more involved in SMA in the years to come.
urban-forestry.com 33
