About Us

I have lived in Oregon since 1985 and call the small rural town of Talent home. I joined the OCT Board in 2017. I currently work full time as a Hazard Mitigation Coordinator for the City of Talent and the staffer for theTalent Urban Forestery Committee. I am a certified arborist and landscape construction professional, President of Oregon Community Trees, previous Chair and founding member of the Talent Urban Forestry Committee, previous Governance Director for the PNW-ISA, previous Vice-chair of the Ashland Tree Committee, and previous Chair of the Post Growth Institute. I started in the urban forestry field as a nursery professional for Plant Oregon in 2001 followed by working as the Landscape Supervisor for Southern Oregon University and then as the Parks Superintendent for the City of Ashland Parks and Recreation Commission. I am committed to improving urban forestry throughout Oregon and the World.

Teresa is the Urban Forester for the City of La Grande. La Grande is a small city in Eastern Oregon (pop.13,000) in the beautiful Grand Ronde valley, and a Tree City USA since 1990. Teresa graduated from Oregon State University with a degree in Forest Management and worked in the timber industry before switching gears to urban forestry. In addition to her work with OCT Teresa is a member of the Pacific Northwest International Society of Arboriculture, the Society of Municipal Arborists, is an ISA Certified Arborist and holds a Tree Risk Assessment Qualification. Teresa and her husband Steve own a small farm where they raised their two sons and now entertain their grandchildren.

Tyler has run his own tree service as a climbing arborist in Hood River since 2014. He has a BAS in Horticulture from Oregon State University and an AAS in Natural Resources from MHCC.

Tyler served on the Hood River Tree Committee for six years. He enjoys interacting with the community in regards to urban forestry education and events.

Taylor Glass is a Volunteer and Program Specialist with Friends of Trees Eugene Metro who manages volunteer and event coordination to help bring the communities of Eugene and Springfield together to plant and care for trees. Taylor holds a BS in Environmental Science and Geography from the University of Oregon. She believes there is no better time than right now to plant trees, and no better way to do it than together with other community members. Taylor also serves on the board of Oregon Community Trees as board secretary. When she’s not coordinating volunteer tree planting and care events, you’ll find Taylor exploring the outdoors, playing tabletop games, and creating mixed media art.

Samantha holds a BS in Biology, a BBA in Business Management, and a MS in Natural Resources & Environment, with a focus on forest ecology and climate change. She is originally from Ann Arbor, MI and moved to Oregon in 2013. Sam began her work in urban forestry via a wood utilization project with Clackamas County and the State of Oregon in 2016. Clackamas Forestry Product Cooperative Program studied the potential of urban wood as a source of income to offset municipal costs associated with maintaining an urban forest. In addition to urban wood research, Sam is the Chapter Director of the Oregon Urban Wood Network, Vice-President of Oregon Heritage Trees, and a member of Oregon City's Natural Resources Committee.

Jennifer’s passion for trees began at a young age. She has always seen sustainability as a cornerstone of her personal and professional life. Jennifer’s sustainability morals and ethics drove her to earn a Master's Degree from Oregon State University with an emphasis in managing sustainability in an urban environment. She got her professional start in urban forestry 14 years ago working on emerald ash borer surveys in Wisconsin. Since then she has served in numerous urban forestry-related professional positions, volunteered for urban forestry-related not-for-profits, and currently serves as a board director for Oregon Community Trees.

Morgan is a fourth‐generation forester and the owner of Morgan Holen & Associates, LLC, a consulting arborist and urban forest management company based in Wilsonville, Oregon. She specializes in performing tree inventories and assessments, preparing arborist reports, and monitoring tree protection during construction. Morgan enjoys fly fishing in her free time.

Lauren Grand joined OSU Extension as the Lane County Extension Forester in 2016. Lauren’s role is to provide objective, research-based educational opportunities related to forest ecology, forest stewardship, and small woodland management. Before becoming an extension forester Lauren worked as a wood products consultant in Vietnam and research assistant with fire ecology labs at UC Berkeley and the Forest Service. She has a BS in Environmental Science from the University of California Berkeley. Her expertise also includes amphibian conservation management, which was the focus of her MS work at the University of Washington. In her free time, Lauren enjoys exploring wetlands for amphibians, romping in the woods with her son and pup, and canning the fruits and veggies from her partner’ garden.

Brian Kelly is an arborist, conservationist, and forester based in La Grande, Oregon since 1980. He is the part-time Executive Director for the Ritter Land Management Team, coordinating conservation projects in the Upper John Day River Basin. Brian is also the Restoration Director for the Greater Hells Canyon Council, a position he has held since 2005 and now does on a part-time basis. Prior to that, Brian served as the Urban Forestry Consultant to the City of La Grande for 10 years. He was honored to receive the "Oregon Urban Forestry Professional of the Year Award" from Oregon Community Trees & Oregon Department of Forestry. From 1980 to 1996, Brian was the Director of Kelly Forestry and Associates, completing many thousands of acres of projects including forest and wildlife surveys, vegetation classification, and tree planting contracts. Brian received a Bachelor of Science degree from Cornell University majoring in Plant Sciences. As part of his program of study, he completed significant coursework at the College of Environmental Science and Forestry at Syracuse University. He continues to learn from a range of educational opportunities. Brian has been a Certified Arborist in good standing for 25 years.

Now retired, Kristin served as the Urban and Community Forestry Assistance Program manager at the Oregon Department of Forestry from 2017-2022. She started working for ODF’s urban forestry program in 1992 as a community assistance forester. She also serves on the Oregon Heritage Tree Committee and has been an ISA-Certified Arborist for 30ish years. She holds a BS in Production Horticulture, with a minor in Forest Management from Oregon State University, and a MS in Forest Science from the Yale School of the Environment.

Tony is the Planting Program Supervisor for Portland Urban Forestry. Tony and his team manage the plantings of thousands of trees in parks, school grounds, private yards, and along streets, with a focus on Portland’s most heat-vulnerable neighborhoods. Prior to Portland, he served as the first Urban Forester of Grants Pass (his hometown), and as a NYC Parks Senior Forester overseeing all street tree plantings in Queens. Tony is an ISA-Certified Arborist with the Tree Risk Assessment Qualification. He holds a BS in Biology and Psychology from the University of Oregon and a Master of Forestry from the Yale School of the Environment.

Working arborist focusing on wildfire response, safety and grassroots professional development for tree workers.

Bio to come

Bio to come

Jim has decades of hands-on experience as a volunteer planting and pruning crew leader with Friends of Trees in Portland. He worked with Portland Urban Forestry helping with their street tree inventory and wrote implementation policies for their Title 11 Tree Code. He has worked to help design and plant educational arboretums at Portland-area schools. He founded the Ainsworth Linear Arboretum in Portland in 2005 as a place where promising new tree species could be planted. He also leads public tree walks on a variety of topics. He currently provides communication support to the Oregon Dept. of Forestry’s Urban Forestry Program.

Bio to come

Paris Edwards is with the Oregon Department of Transportation’s Climate Office. She works on building climate change resilience of the transportation system and its users with a social-environmental perspective. One of her primary goals in working with OCT is to help facilitate practical partnerships and problem solve around barriers to collaboration. Paris has an interdisciplinary background in social and natural resource sciences. She holds a BA in public policy and health policy from Duke University, an MS in water policy and management from Oregon State University and a Ph.D. in water policy and law from the University of Idaho. Paris is a native of the Pacific Northwest and a very big fan of clean air, clean water and shade.

Richard works as the City Arborist for the City of Medford, which he has called home for the past 25 years. As a second-generation landscaper and an air force veteran, Richard's view on the current world is that trees really are the answer. 

Laura Buhl was born in Oregon and raised in the Columbia Gorge and the Willamette Valley. She is a land use and transportation planner for the State of Oregon's Transportation and Growth Management Program. She manages the program's code assistance service, which helps communities throughout the state update their regulations to promote vibrant, livable communities through efficient land use and multi-modal transportation. She believes in the power of trees to make cities more walkable and works to integrate urban forestry into land use and transportation code projects. Laura has been a land use planner for the City of Detroit, Michigan, and for her home county of Wasco County, Oregon. She has volunteered as a Crew Leader with Friends of Trees since 2017. She holds a BA in American Studies from Mills College, a Master of Community and Regional Planning from the University of Oregon, and is currently pursuing a Graduate Certificate in Urban Forestry at Oregon State University.