City Trees

While Greg [Soltwisch] and I certainly dove into the technical side of urban forestry (e.g., pruning intervals and scopes of work, planting plans, tree inventories, pests and pathogens, and much more), it honestly has been most helpful to have someone with ample experience with munic- ipal government process and public interactions around trees. These are areas that can be difficult to understand and approach with the right tact- fulness when starting a new urban forestry role in city government. The public can get emotional around trees (lots of love and also frustrations) and having someone who has been through that and can be a sounding board has provided a lot of perspective for me. It was also awesome to get to shadow Greg in Downers Grove for a day when I was visiting family in Chicago. Making that in-person connection, meeting his team, and seeing some of the sites and trees he is working with was really fun! Greg was extremely helpful navigating me through the process to become an ISA Certified Arborist and then to earn my Tree Risk Assessment Qualification (TRAQ). Whether that was discussing strategy for testing and studying, or going over concepts to prepare for those credentials, it has been awesome having Greg as a resource to share his experience and knowledge! — Dan Hintz (mentee) City of Issaquah, Washington Urban Forest Supervisor What has been most meaningful to me has been getting to know Dan—his background, experiences, and perspectives. He and I have taken different routes to where we are. Things are different in many ways between the Pacific Northwest (PNW) where Dan lives and works vs. here in Chicagoland where I am. The PNW is also historically more progressive in terms of environmental pol- icies. For example, Issaquah has a tree protection policy that has been adapted to protect trees on private property, a policy which is very popular in the PNW. Here in the Midwest, this policy is imple- mented in a select few communities near me in Downers Grove. That being said, both of our communities have very high com- munity involvement, which is something Dan and I both love. Dan and I possess different kinds of knowledge, but when we share this information we grow as people and professionals alike. I love this program because it is an opportunity to give back and help people get on a path to their career goals—but there's also a personal con- nection/friendship that develops between the mentor and mentee. —Greg Soltwisch (mentor) Village of Downers Grove, Illinois Forester 36 CityTREES

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