Your career trajectory?
While studying at Virginia Tech, Eric graciously
recruited me to join a team of interns invento-
rying trees for a statewide i-Tree Eco project. We
collected data in towns and cities across the com-
monwealth and I owe Eric, John Peterson (also of
the forestry department), and my teammates great
gratitude for teaching me the protocols and helping
me fine tune my tree ID skills. I did that work for
a few seasons and completed the project with a
much greater appreciation for trees and the chal-
lenges urban foresters and arborists face every day.
After that I was lucky enough to join the City
of Roanoke Urban Forestry team as a seasonal
employee, filling the groundie (ground-level arbo-
ricultural) role with several crews and learning
the art and science of tree care. I spent the fol-
lowing eight years at the City of Roanoke serving in
every role on the Urban Forestry team, up to City
Arborist. I enjoyed my time at that city immensely
and still miss working with our community partners
throughout the Roanoke Valley. Since leaving that
position in 2019, I have served as the Virginia Tech
Urban Forest Manager and University Arborist.
What do you enjoy doing most
in your current position?
In October 2019 I joined the Virginia Tech Campus
Planning, Infrastructure, and Facilities team; we
are working to develop a comprehensive urban
forest management program for the campus. We
have decided to approach this program just like
any other urban forester would approach manage-
ment in their towns or cities, as Virginia Tech is just
like a large town or small city—it has more than
13,000 employees and nearly 35,000 students. >>
www.urban-forestry.com 17
For Arbor Day 2022, Jamie spoke about the planting of a tree
grown from cuttings collected before this legacy black willow
(Salix nigra) on the Virginia Tech campus was removed.
members of the Virginia
discussed the
(Quercus alba).
