2019 Trees Matter Symposium
Montgomery Parks and Casey Trees, Washington D.C., present the eighth annual Trees Matter Symposium. Presentations will focus on the health and welfare of trees in our increasingly developed landscapes. Learn from some of the country’s leading experts about innovative efforts to plant, protect and preserve trees in urban and suburban settings.
Trees provide many benefits: they cleanse and cool our air, stabilize our soils, provide wildlife habitat and beautify our urban and suburban areas. We encourage all arborists, landscape industry and environmental/green industry professionals, engineers, designers, housing developers and interested citizens to take advantage of this opportunity to learn new techniques and concepts on what can be done to ensure the survival of trees in our built environment
Become an exhibitor or sponsor of the Trees Matter Symposium by completing the Trees Matter Sponsorship Letter , or for more information contact:
Thomas BerryThomas.Berry@MontgomeryParks.org
2018 Trees Matter Symposium
2018 Trees Matter Symposium offered:
Continuing education units (CEUs) for Maryland Licensed Tree Experts (5 Credits), ISA Certified Arborists (5 credits), Chesapeake Bay Landscape Professional (5 credits), Pesticide Re-certification 2 (forest) and 3A (ornamental-exterior) (8 credits), Landscape Architect LACES (5 credits), Society of American Foresters (5 credits) and Certified Professional Horticulturists (1 Credit) are available. More information on CEUs will be posted as they are approved.
Meet our 2018 Trees Matter Speakers
Dr. Jessica Vogt Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental Science and Studies at DePaul University
Jess Vogt is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental Science and Studies at DePaul University. She teaches classes in urban forestry, sustainability science, and mixed methods research, and collaborates with undergraduate students to do research in her Lab for Urban Forestry in the Anthropocene (LUFA; www.lufa-depaul.org) . Jess’s research examines how urban forestry can contribute to creating sustainable and resilient communities in the Anthropocene – the new geologic era of intense human impacts on the planet. Jess is active in the urban forestry professional community and the International Society of Arboriculture (ISA), currently serving as Vice Chair of ISA’s Science & Research Committee and program chair of the planning committee for the May 2019 Arboriculture & Urban Forestry Educators’ Symposium & Summit, as well as Director of Research for the Illinois Arborist Association. Since 2015, Jess has also served as an Associate Editor for the journal Urban Forestry & Urban Greening and Subject Editor for Urban Forestry for the journal Forestry . In August of 2018, Jess was a Visiting Foreign Expert at the International Lab of Henan Provincial Landscape Architecture at Henan Agricultural University in Zhengzhou, China. She was awarded the 2018 International Society of Arboriculture Awards of Distinction Early-Career Scientist Award.
“The Costs of Maintaining (& Not Maintaining) Trees”
What can our existing scientific literature tell us about the costs of not maintaining trees? A 2015 ISA-commissioned literature review, Vogt, J., Hauer, R., Fischer, B. (2015). The Costs of Maintaining and Not Maintaining the Urban Forest: A Review of the Urban Forestry and Arboriculture Literature. Journal of Arboriculture and Urban Forestry , 41 (6), 293-323., aims to answer this question. What do we really know–and not know–about the costs of performing less than optimal maintenance? How do investments in structural pruning, health care, mulching and even watering maintenance practices stack up against the cost of NOT providing optimal levels of maintenance for urban trees? Analysis of data from the literature review includes risk assessment, pest economics, IPM, costs of removal and tree mortality.
For those seeking LA CES credits, please complete the session evaluation form .
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Dan Staley Principal at Arbor Drone, LLC
Dan Staley is Principal of Arbor Drone, LLC, a green infrastructure consultancy in Aurora, CO. A licensed remote pilot, he studied Environmental Horticulture and Urban Forestry at UC Davis and Urban Planning at the University of Washington, including a year of urban ecology under a National Science Foundation grant. His published work on urban green infrastructure and urban forestry has appeared in scholarly journals, proceedings, symposia, policy papers and trade magazines in several industries.
“Urban Forestry from Above: Seeing Trees in a New Light”
Explore current and future possibilities for using drones to perform tree assessments in urban forests: early pest detection, inventories, disaster response, and risk assessment can now be done remotely. See examples of aerial images with a bird’s eye view to grasp the resolution and detail possible with today’s drone cameras and sensors! Dan will share his thoughts about current equipment and new technology on the future horizon. Drone technology has created new job opportunities for arborists in areas of image analysis, aerial arboriculture, and remote sensing of tree issues. But, don’t overlook the legal aspects of drone use! What is the latest on the legal front and types of insurance available?
For those seeking LA CES credits, please complete the session evaluation form .
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Greg Levine Co-Executive Director & Chief Program Officer, Trees Atlanta
Greg has worked at Trees Atlanta since 1995 and is currently the Co- Executive Director and Chief Program Officer. Greg has helped to create and develop many programs including: NeighborWoods, Forest Restoration, Neighborhood Arboreta, the Atlanta BeltLine Arboretum and many educational programs. Greg received a Bachelor in Landscape Architecture from the University of Georgia and is an International Society of Arboriculture (ISA) Certified Arborist. He is named to Atlanta Business Chronicle’s Who’s Who in Sustainability.
“The Atlanta BeltLine Arboretum – a 22-mile Urban Forestry Experiment”
Greg will share the trials and tribulations encountered during the inception, development and maintenance of the Atlanta BeltLine Arboretum. This 22-mile arboretum may be the longest linear arboretum in the world and is part of the Atlanta Beltline, which is the most comprehensive transportation and economic development effort ever undertaken in the City of Atlanta. Greg will discuss Trees Atlanta’s programs and how they integrated into the BeltLine Arboretum. The presentation will include how Trees Atlanta overcame social, political, weed & insect challenges while managing more than 50 tree projects and 20 urban forest restorations, during the creation of the 22-mile arboretum circling the city. This project is among the largest, most wide-ranging urban redevelopment programs currently underway in the United States.
For those seeking LA CES credits, please complete the session evaluation form .
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Sam Droege grew up in Hyattsville, received an undergraduate degree at the University of Maryland and a Master’s at the State University of New York – Syracuse. Most of his career has been spent at the USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center. He has coordinated the North American Breeding Bird Survey Program, developed the North American Amphibian Monitoring Program, the Bioblitz, Cricket Crawl, and FrogwatchUSA programs and worked on the design and evaluation of monitoring programs. Currently he is developing an inventory and monitoring program for native bees, online identification guides for North American bees at www.discoverlife.org , and with Jessica Zelt reviving the North American Bird Phenology Program. As an aside, he is looking for volunteers interested in helping Photoshop hi-resolution photographs of insects – see http://www.flickr.com/photos/usgsbiml/ and can be contacted at sdroege@usgs.gov
“Trees Matter…To Bees”
What is the pollen & nectar range of trees? Some tree species produce gallons of nectar and pollen while other tree species are of no value to a bee. What strategies can you implement to select & maintain bee-friendly trees? What steps can you take to minimize unwanted bee “issues” such as stinging? Blooming trees can support huge populations of bees. Other plants in the landscape provide a range of pollen and nectar. Intermediate producers include species of blooming shrubs, shrubby and understory blooming woody plants which host different groups of bees. Native plants also support bee populations however, many varietals that bloom can no longer produce pollen or nectar. Native bees are extraordinarily diverse–as diverse in variety, size, shape, and habits as the flowering plants they feed on!
For those seeking LA CES credits, please complete the session evaluation form .
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Mike Galvin
Mike Galvin is Director of the SavATree Consulting Group. He has over 30 years experience in arboriculture in the public, NGO, and private sectors. He is a Past President of the American Society of Consulting Arborists, served as a member of the Chesapeake Bay Program’s Urban Tree Canopy Expert Panel, and received the 2011 True Professionals of Arboriculture award from ISA and a 2004 Pat Felix Volunteer of the Year Award from TCIA. Currently he serves as a Project Coordinator for the US Forest Service Research + Development’s Baltimore Urban Field Station where he works on urban wood recovery and reuse.
“The Baltimore Wood Project: from Waste to Wealth in the Sustainable City”
More urban wood is disposed of than is harvested from National Forests in the U.S.–much of this wood is salvageable and useable. Over 30,000,000 tons of urban wood waste is generated annually across the nation! Much of this waste comes in two streams – wood from tree removals; and wood from demolished buildings. In the sustainable city, buildings can be deconstructed rather than demolished thus recovering and reusing the flooring, framing, and architectural elements. Trees removed from a construction site may be cut, dried, milled and incorporated into new buildings and/or nearby projects, depending on species and quality. Mike will tell us about the Baltimore Wood Project–a project that uses wood waste streams to create jobs and turn this wood from waste to wealth!
For those seeking LA CES credits, please complete the session evaluation form .
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