I grew up in a very rural and heavily wooded region of
Southwest Wisconsin with high ridges and deep valleys
called the
Driftless Area. We lived out in the country,
so I played in the deep woods along the sandstone
ridge behind my home where I had a tree fort but also
a second fort in an alcove at the base of a sandstone
bluff. My friend's father was the county forester, so I
was introduced to that career path at a young age.
I enrolled at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
my freshman year, and though I enjoyed the big city,
the offerings at that school bored me. My father sug-
gested I transfer to UW-Stevens Point for forestry. At
UWSP, I quickly found arboriculture and urban forestry,
graduating with a B.S. in Urban Forestry in 2008.
My first job out of college was as the La Porte,
Indiana City Forester. This was good experience,
but terrible pay. In 2010, I followed a girl to Austin,
Texas and worked for about four years for the
City of Austin, where I wore many hats including
leading an urban forest master planning process
and later supervising the in-house arborist crews.
I went to school nights and weekends to earn a
Master of Public Administration from Texas State
University (2013). I enjoyed my thesis and fell
in love with research, so I applied for doctoral
programs and attended Virginia Tech as a full-time
student for a Ph.D. in Urban Forestry (2016).
After graduation, my now-wife Amber and I moved
to Chicago, Illinois and I took the position of city for-
ester for Highland Park, Illinois, a beautiful suburb
on Lake Michigan with a very long history of pre-
serving trees during construction and development.
I also managed 30,000 street trees, grounds, holiday
lights, and more. We were happy to be near family
in the Midwest, but we grew tired of the long, hard
winters. So we decided to move to the Southeast U.S.
and started looking for jobs to make that happen.
Since July 2021, I have been the urban forester for
Union County, North Carolina, which is a suburban
county of Charlotte, one of the fastest-growing
cities in the country. Union County is dealing with
intense development pressure and rapid land
use change. My position is a cost-share arrange-
ment between 10 towns and cities in the county.
I love this job because it doesn't include the things
I find stressful, like being directly responsible for
a budget, a crew, contractors, or things that gen-
erate complaints like grounds maintenance. Instead,
I primarily work like a consultant to review devel-
opment plans and advise towns on how to improve
Board Member Profile
Keith
O'Herrin
Keith O'Herrin visiting with CUNC Urban Forestry Director Rich Hauer
at the World Forum on Urban Forests in Washington, D.C. last fall.
14 CityTREES
