Kayla Stuart received a 2025 UCFS
Young and Emerging Professionals
(YEP) Award. She is the founder and
director of Tree CPR, a tree equity
workforce program. She earned her
bachelor's degree, and is now pur-
suing a master's in Urban Forestry,
both at the University of Tennessee.
My earliest mentors were my grandfather (Poppy)
and my dad. Poppy was an ecologist who took my
brothers and me to the Smoky Mountains to hike,
fish, and catch and examine crawdads and salaman-
ders. He exposed me to the world of natural resources,
and my dad taught me how to care for people of
all walks of life no matter their circumstances.
After having my oldest daughter when I was in high
school, I became a Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN) and
focused on pediatrics and mental health—pretty far
from a career as a steward of natural resources—or so
Kayla Stuart overlooking Lower Bugaboo Falls, right outside
of Banff National Park in British Columbia, Canada.
"Here, the first Tree CPR cohort took a picture to celebrate
receiving a donation from the West Tennessee Chapter
of the Tennessee Urban Forestry Council (TUFC) for us to
attend the TUFC conference in 2023." —Kayla Stuart
Your network is your net
worth. It's so important
to have relationships
with integrity; you get
access to opportunities
through people knowing
what you're doing.
32 CityTREES
