About Us

OCT's Board elected Jim Gersbach as its new president at its March 7, 2025 meeting in Salem. Jim was born in Oregon and grew up in the Pacific Northwest with stints in subtropical Australia and Brazil where he was exposed to amazing trees. He has a degree in Journalism earned at the University of Oregon. He now lives in Portland where he founded the Ainsworth Linear Arboretum. A City-trained neighborhood tree steward, he workedwith other volunteers to establish the Concordia Learning Landscape Arboretum in 2024 to showcase relict tree species and a diverse selection of oaks. He is a founding member of Trees for Life Oregon, which advocates for preserving healthy large shade trees and the space for them to grow in. For the past decade Jim has been an active board member with OCT. In 2023 he chaired the organization's conference on emerging tree pests. He also leads the occasional educational tree walk at Hoyt Arboretum or other locations around Portland.

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.

Laura Buhl was born in Oregon and raised in the Columbia Gorge and the Willamette Valley. She is the Community Green Infrastructure Program Administrator at the Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development, where she was previously a land use and transportation planner for the Transportation and Growth Management Program and realized the power of trees to make cities more walkable. 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 a Graduate Certificate in Urban Forestry from Oregon State University.

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.

Tyler Roth served as OCT president from June 2023 to March 2025. During that time he helped the organization navigate holding its annual urban forestry conference outside Portland for the first time in years. Tyler is based in Hood River and enjoys recreating withhis son in the forests, rivers, mountains, and lakes. Tyler is a proud OSU Horticulture alumn. Tyler ran his own tree service in the Central Columbia River Gorge for a decade, also a consulting arborist and tree
committee member. Oddly enough, he is now working with AutoCAD drafting for naval architecture projects and maritime projects. He is very interested in applying these new skills to bioswale / tree well design projects in the future.

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.

Eric Hammond, an ISA-certified arborist, joined the OCT board in March 2025. He’s head grower at Heritage Seedlings & Liners, a wholesale nursery that promotes less-common trees from seed and grafting to help diversify Oregon's urban forests. Hammond has a Bachelor's in Science degree in Horticulture from Washington State University (Go Cougars!), has worked as a horticulturist in both South Korea and China, and currently sits on the Silverton City Council. He is also a new board member of the Oregon Garden Foundation and advocates for Oregon white oak in the Willamette Valley through citizen science program, OAKtober.org which he founded in 2023. In 2024 he completed the Urban Community Forestry Society’s Municipal Forestry Institute.

For two years running Heidi Lakics has co-chaired with Taylor Glass OCT's annual urban forestry conference. Together they helped navigate bringing the conference to Eugene in 2024, the first time in years it had been held outside Portland. Heidi is based in Eugene where she works for the City's Parks and Recreation. In May 2023 she organized a widely publicized tree planting with players on the University of Oregon football team.

Rudy Roquemore is a long-time staff member of Friends of Trees (Portland). Early in his career he organized and assisted with neighborhood plantings/prunings in Portland and Beaverton while managing a contract with the City of Portland
(BES). He now serves as Workforce Development Manager and focuses on helping low-income and BIPOC folks explore
careers in the urban forestry sector. As a board member, he chairs OCT's Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee which
helps guide scholarship efforts and support inclusion initiatives for the board. In his free time Rudy enjoys getting outside, going to concerts, and playing basketball.

Avery McChristian became a board member of OCT in March of 2025. He is an ISA-certified arborist and Tree Risk Assessor. Since 2023 he has worked as City Arborist for the City of Redmond, Oregon. Prior to working in municipal arboriculture he spent 13 years working as a steward of public lands and as an advocate for wilderness with the
National Park Service and US Forest Service throughout the western states and Hawai’i. Avery is currently a student in the graduate certificate of Urban Forestry program at OSU. He was a member of the 2025 cohort of the Green Communities Leadership Institute. On weekends and evenings he runs a small tree-care business focused on arboricultural consultation and fruit tree pruning based out of Sisters, Oregon. On rare occasions when he doesn’t have his head in the trees, you can probably find him out on the river or riding a bicycle!

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 from 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.

Stephen Baker is the regional urban and community forestry program manager for the U.S. Forest Service Pacific
Northwest and Alaska Regions. He’s passionate about conservation, connecting people and nature, and the human health benefits of trees and natural areas. Outside of work, he enjoys hiking, gardening, and exploring new places with his wife and two daughters.