Stedman’s niche: Caring for the trees

By Kasha Stoll

Karin

Stedman is a certified forest pest first detector, tree inspector and pool operator. She is also the only full-time female employee in the City of Cloquet Public Works department.

“I am not one to go out there and operate a big chainsaw. It is not meant to be for me,” said Stedman, a parks maintenance employee who has a petite build and stands 5 feet 2 inches tall. “I use hand tools on everything possible just because that is what I am comfortable with.

“I would encourage women to get outdoors and look at the opportunities you have. There are a lot of opportunities out there that use your brain, not just your strength and size or your ability to run equipment.”

Reaching for Opportunities

Stedman joined the Cloquet Public Works department five years ago and was assigned to maintaining the sporting fields. When an invasive insect from Asia called the emerald ash borer began appearing in St. Louis County, Stedman’s boss sent her to seminars and training sessions to learn how to manage the threat. She returned to work and inventoried all the ash trees in the city.

Stedman later attended a continuing education course offered through the University of Minnesota and the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. That’s where she learned how to identify infestations from a variety of invasive species and earned her certification as a Minnesota forests pest first detector. It is also where she learned about the tree inspector certification.

Stedman said she reached out to her supervisor to see if he wanted her to pursue the opportunity and use the knowledge to benefit the city. He said yes and sent her to the course.

“I have always had an interest in learning new things,” Stedman said. “When this opportunity came up through the city to kind of be their go-to person when it comes to trees and invasive species and things like that, I just jumped at the chance.”

According to the Minnesota

Karin Stedman, the only full-time female employee in the City of Cloquet Public Works Department, is responsible for the care of the city’s trees, such as this maple in Veterans Park. Karin discusses pruning trees, like this crabapple tree in Cloquet’s Veterans Park.

Department of Natural Resources, the certified tree inspector program was implemented in 1974 in response to Dutch elm disease and oak wilt. The more than 800 certified tree inspectors in the state are required to attend annual recertification workshops where they learn about tree care, exotic species management, shade tree management, tree selection, and insect and disease identification.

As an inspector, Stedman learned how to identify native tree species with or without leaves. This knowledge helps her identify which firewood can be used in various campsites and counties.

“There are a lot of quarantines in

Seasonal Schedule

Winter:

• Trim and prune trees

• Maintain pleasure ice skating areas, hockey rinks and ski trails

Spring:

• Inspect playgrounds

• Prep baseball and soccer fields for play

• Prepare sand-bottomed, chlorinated swimming pond

• Get winterized community buildings ready for summer

• Get irrigation system up and running

Summer:

• Mow grass

• Monitor swimming pond

• Care for 60 perennial flower beds

• Trim trees and bushes, as necessary, to preserve safety and line of sight

• Maintain community buildings

Fall: the state for moving firewood,” she said. “In the city campground, we don’t allow people to bring their own firewood in or out. Other quarantines won’t let people bring certain types of firewood from one county to another.”

• Winterize swimming pond, seasonal buildings and irrigation system.

The quarantines help prevent the transfer of invasive species from one area to another.

Stedman can also recognize insect infestations. For example, she said trees that are infested with emerald ash borer may have woodpecker damage, peeling bark and a thinning canopy of leaves. To confirm a problem, she can peel a section of the bark away from a tree and look for patterns caused by larvae channeling through the wood.

Trimming and Pruning

Stedman says one of her favorite parts of the job is pruning the 200 or so trees that have been planted in city parks in the past three to five years.

“You have these brand new trees, and you can start fresh exactly where you want with them instead of basically having to correct years of growth,” she said. “With structural pruning, we will take certain branches off in order to help that tree grow into the shape we want it to.”

For example, she said, a tree that was planted to provide shade should grow tall first and then branch out. To do that, the tree needs to have a single, central leader branch. If the largest branch in the center of the tree starts to divide, then the energy and nutrients within that tree are divided to support both branches.

Stedman uses structural pruning techniques to determine which branch should remain and be allowed to grow. She also must decide when and where to cut the second branch to avoid damaging the tree.

“You don’t want to take off a branch that is more than one-third the size of the branch it is connected to,” Stedman said.

Sometimes it can take a few years of careful pruning before a central branch is firmly established.

Pruning is almost always done in February through mid-March when the trees are dormant and less like to be traumatized. During the summer months, Stedman typically limits herself to necessary trimming. She described that as “keeping branches high enough that lawnmowers don’t hit them when we are underneath them and keeping trees and brush back from sideways and roadways.”

For Stedman, no two workdays are the same as her schedule changes dramatically with the seasons. D