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Tree Tour with Dr. Matt Ritter

Kick off the conference with a tour of the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo Campus Urban Tree Canopy with the legendary Dr. Matt Ritter. A bus will transport attendees to the campus and back.

Registration, light Breakfast

Start the day off with a light breakfast and meet your follow attendees.

Welcome

Emily Spillett,
Board President,
California Urban Forests Council

Derek J. Johnson,
City Manager,
San Luis Obispo

Nancy Hughes,
Executive Director,
California Urban Forests Council

NASA Trees: Student Research, Citizen Science, and Space-Based Observations

Includes outside exercises (tree related)

Trees are vital to our environment. Tree Height is the number one indicator of how well an ecosystem can grow trees. NASA’s Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2) measuresEarth’s tree heights from space. Now, through the GLOBE Program and the NASA Globe Observer (NASA GO) citizen science app, students and observers can measure the height of trees with either a hand-held clinometer or simply a mobile device. Learn all about how you can measure tree height measurements through NASA GO and the Trees Around the GLOBE Student Research Campaign and compare your data to that of ICESat-2.

Brian A. Campbell
Senior Earth Science Outreach Scientist
NASA Wallops Flight Facility

Break with Sponsors

Building Resistance to Urban Heat: One Tree at a Time

The increasing intensity, duration, and frequency of extreme heat have far-reaching consequences on the health of our communities, infrastructure, and ecosystems. By describing the integration of community science, urban development scenarios, and online decision support tools, this presentation will offer recent evidence about the distribution of urban heat and approaches to reduce impacts to human and ecosystem health.

Break-out sessions during the presentation will provide attendees with the opportunity for hands-on learning.

Vivek Shandas
Professor & Principal
Portland State University & CAPA Strategies LLC

Enjoy a delicious catered lunch and networking time with your fellow attendees.

Climate Change and Urban Trees: Issues and Adaptation

Climate change presents a set of challenges to our urban trees and to the people who manage them. We will review the mechanisms behind climate change and the challenges it presents, as well as some methods that tree managers can use to adjust their tree species selection in the changing climate. We will conclude with an overview of the “space for time substitution” approach to selecting tree species that are likely to survive in the warmer future.

Igor Lacan
Urban Forestry Advisor
University of California Cooperative Extension

Climate Change & Urban Forests

CAL FIRE Perspectives on California’s Urban/Rural Forest Continuum

John Melvin, Henry Herrera, and Kim Corella will discuss their perspectives on challenges and threats that cross all forest types in California.

The session includes an audience Q & A.

Panelists:

• Henry Herrera, Forester I, Urban Forester
• Kim Corella; Forester II, Forest Pest Specialist
• John Melvin, Staff Chief, Resource Protection & Improvement

Break with Sponsors 

Tree Equity

Research shows significantly less tree cover on public right-of-way in neighborhoods with more African-Americans, low-income residents, and renters. In response, American Forests has called for Tree Equity, an effort to ensure every neighborhood has the benefit of trees for health, wealth, and climate response.

Through the Tree Equity: Career Pathways initiative, the organization is addressing a nationwide labor shortage on the front lines in urban forestry. Few employers in the field have successfully tapped into the supply of workers in communities with the lowest tree canopy cover, which tend to have higher rates of unemployment. American Forests is building the capacity of urban forestry pre-employment programs and facilitating cross-sector partnerships that will ensure a sustainable workforce into the future. Whether you represent an urban forestry employer or are curious about running your own pre-employment program, or simply support an equitable and diverse workforce in urban forestry, join to learn how to create Tree Equity through improved Career Pathways.

Sarah Lillie Anderson
Senior Manager
Tree Equity with American Forests

California Tree Selection: Factors to Consider in an Era of Climate Chaos & Decreasing Diversity

Dr. Matt Ritter, professor at Cal Poly, will discuss native and exotic trees planted in the California urban forest. Dr. Ritter will discuss patterns and trends in tree selection and considerations for helping to ensure a healthy urban forest for California cities in a time of climate change and decreasing biodiversity. What should we consider when choosing a tree species for planting? Carbon sequestration potential, aesthetics, water use, provenance, and culture all play a role.

Matt Ritter, PhD
Professor, Biological Sciences Department
Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo

Registration, light Breakfast

Start the day off with a light breakfast and meet your follow attendees.

Welcome

Jennifer Alger,
Director, Urban Salvaged & Reclaimed Woods Inc.
CEO, Far West Forest Products, Wood-Mizer CA

Nancy Hughes,
Executive Director,
California Urban Forests Council

Marketing & Scaling Your Urban Lumber Business

Learn the latest techniques and strategies to grow your urban lumber business through marketing and branding.

Steve Larosiliere,
Acres of Timber / Woodpreneur Podcast, President & Founder

Break with Sponsors

Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide and Carbon Storage in Urban Wood Products

When fallen urban trees are used as fuel or mulch, carbon is quickly released into the atmosphere where it combines with oxygen to form carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas. When used instead to make products, the carbon is retained in the wood. In this presentation, the amount of CO2 not formed (referred to as CO2e) as a result is explained and examples calculated by major hardwood and softwood species. Important for urban wood businesses to be explicit about the environmental contribution of urban wood products.

Sam Sherrill,
Retired Professor and Author,
University of Cincinnati,
Harvesting Urban Timber

In this session, Jennifer Alger will update you on what Urban Salvaged, and Reclaimed Woods Inc. is, how it was formed, what we have accomplished so far, what some of our goals are, and most importantly what it can do for you as an urban wood professional.

Enjoy a delicious catered lunch and networking time with your fellow attendees.

Standardizing Urban Lumber

Jennifer Alger,
Director, Urban Salvaged & Reclaimed Woods Inc.
CEO, Far West Forest Products, Wood-Mizer CA

The Urban Lumber Movement finally has Standards for Urban Lumber that include urban lumber certification and chain-of-custody.

These and USRW certification will help to legitimize our industry and allow us to move our product into even more markets, further minimizing the amount of urban wood going to the waste stream and therefore lowering our carbon footprint.

• Jennifer Alger
• John Melvin
• Mike Palat
• Dwayne Sperber
• Andy Trotter

• USRW certified wood and how to market it
• Collectively marketing urban wood as an industry
• How to overcome the unknown level of supply of any given species of wood
• How to get the larger urban forest industry interested in urban wood and trained to provide material in a useable state
• How to get municipalities, agencies, and other urban tree owners to adopt an urban wood policy
• Getting urban wood on the radar of more architects, designers, decorators
• Planting trees that have their highest end of life value
• Urban Wood grading and Drying Standards

Tour of Pacific Coast Lumber

Tour of Pacific Coast Lumber

Sean O’Brien of Pacific Coast lumber will give a tour of his working urban lumber business that salvages urban lumber, mills and dries it, and turns it into amazing finished products.

Live demonstrations of an urban rescued log being turned into lumber will be provided on a Wood-Mizer hydraulic sawmill.

A short kiln presentation by Danny Torres of Deadwood Revival design and Katanja Waldner and Ana Munoz of Urban Wood Rescue.