Another first-rate Southern Chapter TCC

by Scott Winningham, TCC Chair

The Southern Chapter held its 41st-annual TCC event the weekend of March 24-26 at Eastlake Park in Chattanooga Tennessee. This park, boasting a large pond surrounded by walking trails, play grounds, and many large oaks, hosted the preliminary events. A grove of 200+ year-old white and post oak trees was selected to host the Masters Challenge event on Sunday.

In attendance were 42 competitors, 30 from the Southern Chapter and 12 representing Texas, Virginia, Georgia, Florida, Colorado, Maryland, Illinois, and Ohio. We had 45 volunteers from the Southern Chapter as well as from New York, Arizona, Texas, Florida, Georgia, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Illinois. Also in attendance were several vendors from the Trade Show that brought their equipment on-site for the Arbor Fair.

We held an awards ceremony on Saturday night and announced the winners of the preliminary events, as well as the finalists who were competing in the Masters Challenge. Gear and equipment was provided from various arborist supply companies and manufacturers and given as prizes to the winners. Several were generous with their winnings, giving them away as gifts to some of the other competitors, which was a true sign of sportsmanship.

The highlight of the evening was the dinner prepared by ISA Certified Arborist Jamie Montgomery, owner of Lagniappe Tree Works from Covington, Louisiana, and co-hosted by Altec. The meal was delicious and the group was pleased to share a homecooked meal with our extended Southern Chapter TCC family. It was a great day that concluded with an evening of friendship, fellowship, and comradery.

The Masters Challenge men’s division was comprised of Shawn Welch and Andre Duarte, North Carolina; Fletcher Harper, Alabama; and Michael Castle, Texas. Maria Tranguch and 2022 defending champion Nicole Harden, both from North Carolina, competed in the women’s Masters Challenge. The MC awards ceremony was held Sunday night at the opening reception of the conference. Shawn Welch and Maria Tranguch were announced as the Champions and will be representing the ISA Southern Chapter at the ITCC in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Congratulations to all who competed. Hope to see you in 2024!

Green Communities Leadership Institute: Growing Next-Level Leaders for Nature-Based Solutions

by GCLI’s Core Leadership Team

Arborists and urban foresters know that the field of natural resources management has grown significantly during the past 30 years. Environmental challenges in forestry echo those of the green industry at large. The only constant is change and strong leadership in the green industry is needed more than ever.

The Green Communities Leadership Institute (GCLI) was created to meet this need. In the early days of the pandemic in 2020, urban forestry leaders–alongside others in the adjacent fields of natural resources and community planning–met virtually for over a year to craft and shape a leadership experience that could help mid-career professionals take their efforts to the next level.

“We wanted to create something for professionals who were already established leaders but who were also ready to advance further and kick things up a notch,” said Dr. Paul Ries, Director of the Graduate Certificate in Urban Forestry at Oregon State University.

Although there are many leadership trainings for green industry professionals such as the Municipal Forestry Institute and the ISA Leadership Workshop, none had yet been created for those further along in their career and for the broader natural resources and sustainability sectors beyond a focus on trees and urban forestry.

“Some colleagues and I saw the need for a higher-level opportunity that reached across the environmental field, so we reached out to connections who saw the same need and GCLI grew from there,” Ries added.

The idea continued to blossom with the establishment of GCLI’s Core Leadership Team, a shared leadership group of crosssector volunteers from across the country. The team changes a bit from year-to-year by design and includes representatives of business, academia, nonprofit, and governmental sectors from the fields of urban forestry to fisheries management to diversity, equity, and inclusion to urban natural resources management, and more.

The GCLI uses a cohort model, whereby participants apply for slots in the program and are expected to learn from each other as well as from the content and the instructors. The GCLI sessions take place between January and March of each year, and include asynchronous online learning, live webinars, and a three-day faceto-face session. The curriculum follows a multi-tiered approach focusing on expanding personal leadership influence, expanding to organizational impact, and culminating with community-wide leadership and growth. Over the course of the GCLI, the cohort members are exposed to the thoughts and teachings of more than 30 different instructors. But even with these many and varied presenters, a major focus of the GCLI is the cohort interconnectedness.

“The magic of the GCLI lies within the cohort members themselves and the connections they make with one another along the way,” said Core Leadership Team member Dana Karcher, Project Developer at Davey Resource Group, Inc. “We intentionally and purposefully build in shared learning experiences, networking opportunities, and space for personal growth.”

The inaugural 2022 cohort included diverse professionals hailing from Massachusetts, California, Georgia, Washington, Texas, Minnesota, and beyond. The backgrounds and professional interests of the cohort members were diverse as well, and included a fisheries biologist, a climate scientist, nonprofit organization executives, and natural resource extension staff, as well as arborists and urban foresters. Hosted by Oregon State University (OSU) in Corvallis, Oregon, the 2022 face-to-face session featured Vicki Christiansen, retired Chief of the US Forest Service, and regional speakers including community organizers and planning and parks and recreation directors from cities in the Pacific Northwest.

“It was such a great experience to be part of the GCLI because it changed the course of my career into a completely different direction. I have a consulting business, which is growing, and I also have a tree-planting organization nonprofit which has absolutely taken off because GCLI gave me the courage to know that I could do both, and that I could be successful in both of these endeavors,” said 2022 GCLI alum Lisa Ortega of Great Basin Sage Consulting, LLC, and the nonprofit Nevada Plants.

The 2023 cohort included Southern Chapter ISA past president Kasey Krouse and participants hailing from Vermont to Hawaii. The cohort met in-person at the University of Tennessee (UT) in Knoxville, and included many leaders from local institutions such as UT and the Knoxville mayor’s office. ISA CEO Caitlyn Pollihan was one of the instructors for this session, and she shared her experiences managing organizational change and thoughts on innovation and strategy. Consultant Charlotte King, a long-time communications and outreach expert who has worked with urban forestry professionals for decades, challenged the cohort members to improve their efforts to engage diverse communities.

The application window for the next cohort opens this summer. Learn more at greencommunitiesleadership.org, and follow the Institute on Twitter (@@GCLInstitute) and on LinkedIn