Paul Hickman is the founder of Urban Ashes a pioneering company the advocates for urban wood utilization. The company transforms fallen urban trees into valuable local resources. Urban Ashes designs, develops, and implements urban wood utilization for infrastructure in collaboration with municipalities, local organizations and businesses to support the local community.

In addition to salvaging urban wood, Paul’s organization provides meaningful employment and business opportunities to formerly incarcerated and justice-impacted youth. This commitment resonates throughout the community, promoting safer and healthier neighborhoods through the People and Trees connection.

Paul is also one of the founding members of the national organization the Urban Wood Network.

David Teuschler is the Chief Horticulturist for Devil Mountain Wholesale Nursery. He established the nursery’s propagation program and currently directs the propagation and inventory teams for the company’s sixteen locations across California. David has worked in the nursery industry for three decades, including many years at Valley Crest Tree Company. While there, he served as Plant Health Care Manager for the Specimen Tree Division, Account Manager in the Estate Gardens Division, and, most notably, Chief Arborist for the Apple contract grow, responsible for growing over 7,000 trees – half from seed – for installation at the Apple campus in Cupertino, CA. David is a Certified Arborist and a member of the Western Chapter of the I.S.A. and the I.P.P.S. He is a 3rd generation Californian and has a BS in Ornamental Horticulture from California State University, Fresno.

Matthew Aghai is a dedicated reforestation expert, applied scientist, and executive leader at Mast Reforestation. He currently serves as the VP of Research and Development at Mast Reforestation, General Manager of Cal Forest Nurseries, and advisor to Silvaseed Company.
His recent work focuses on scalable solutions for mitigating climate change through the development of new initiatives to modernize the reforestation supply chain and connect reforestation initiatives with natural capital markets. Matthew has been featured in several national publications for his work and real impacts, including a National Geographic article discussing national seed limitations, Mongabay articles discussing his team’s pioneering work in aerial seeding technology, and also many peer-reviewed publications.
Matthew is also a practiced and enthusiastic public speaker and actively seeks opportunities to engage with anyone and everyone about finding solutions to the challenges facing the world’s forests.

Kim Shearer is the Curator of Living Collections and Manager of the Haerther Charitable Trust New Plant Development Program at The Morton Arboretum. In her role as curator, Kim focuses on the development and maintenance of resilient living collections that provide a germplasm resource for researchers and plant breeders seeking to address the issues of climate change; while also working with the conservation community to identify priorities that can be addressed through collections curation and research. As Manager of New Plant Development Kim works with plant breeders and the nursery industry to select, evaluate, and develop new plants for the urban and suburban built landscapes. Kim completed her Bachelor of Science degrees in Horticulture Science and Plant Biology at North Carolina State University and her Master of Science degree in Horticulture Science with a focus in Plant Breeding and Genetics at Oregon State University.

Kristen Pullen completed her Bachelor of Science degree in Biology at Rider University. After university, she took an internship position at Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. The internship focused on all research aspects of the public garden from tissue culture to new plant evaluation and selection. Kristen has been with the new product department at Star® Roses and Plants since 2011. She previously managed domestic and international trialing of woody plants before accepting her current role as Woody Ornamental Portfolio Manager where she coordinates the development, launch, and market evaluation of all new trees, shrubs, and edible plants. Kristen also manages the Bushel and Berry® Brand for Star® Roses and Plants, a premium branded program of plants that provide both edible and ornamental uses for the home garden.

Lars Peter Jensen is originally from Denmark and arrived in the U.S.A. in 2003 and settled in Brevard County Florida where he lives with his wife and three children. Lars is the head of sales, marketing, and business development and part owner of the Blackmore Company.

Blackmore has been instrumental in the horticulture industry for more than 50 years. His company holds a patent for the Air Tray® technologies system which is what drew Lars to the company.

As a systems person. Lars has a simplified but analytical approach to nursery production. His philosophy includes these two mottos "Don't automate a problem - remove it". And "To each action, there is a reaction".

Lars’ entry into the green industry was accidental – right out of a Denmark college, Lars went to Seattle, Washington to reorganize and run a small subsidiary of a Danish company. (His degree from university was International Sales). This was the first time Lars came to America and he liked it .. a lot.

After his taste of the U.S., and needing a work permit, Lars went back to Denmark and went on with his career in international sales and marketing. Lars settled down in Vejle, Denmark, and had a family. One day he received a call from Ellepot a company in Denmark asking him to go to America for them. At first, he said no, but then after talking it over with his wife, they agreed to go to the U.S. and settle in, Florida. This is where he met Skip Blackmore the owner of the Blackmore Company – the distributor of the Ellepot in the U.S.

Working with Skip Blackmore, Lars learned a great deal and eventually became a partner in the Blackmore Company. This was the start of a 20-year “road trip” as Lars calls it with a lot of bumps, hills, and unexpected curves but it all led to Air Tray® Technologies, which holds the Ellepot. This combination is a revolution in the horticulture industry and will lead to the next generation of growing efficiently and in half the time.

Kathy Jentz is editor and publisher of Washington Gardener Magazine and hosts the popular GardenDC Podcast. She is also the editor of the Water Garden Journal (IWGS), The Azalean (ASA), and Fanfare, for the local daylily society. She is the author of Groundcover Revolution (out February 2023) and co-author of The Urban Garden: 101 Ways to Grow Food and Beauty in the City.

A life-long gardener, Kathy believes that growing plants should be stress-free and enjoyable. Her philosophy is inspiration over perspiration. She speaks on gardening and has been honored to have presented programs at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello, the Philadelphia Flower Show, U.S. Botanic Garden, the Historic Society of Washington, DC, and many other prestigious venues. Audiences both large and small enjoy hearing her on topics as varied as Dealing with Deer to Small-Space Gardening. For audience reviews of her recent speaking engagements, see her listing at the Great Garden Speakers web site (http://greatgardenspeakers.com/listing/kathy-jentz.html). To book her for online (Zoom) or in-person talks, contact her at KathyJentz@gmail.com.

One of her other hats is as the Green Media columnist for the Mid-Atlantic Grower newspaper, where she does a great deal of hand-holding and coaxing to get independent garden centers, plant breeders, and other horticultural businesses to join the social media revolution and maximize their online brands.

Kathy’s work has been featured in numerous area publications including Pathways Magazine and Washington Women magazine. In addition, she has appeared on regular gardening guest spots on Channel 9, Channel 4, as well as WTOP, WAMU, and WOWD-LP radio stations in Washington, DC.
Currently, she is the President of the Silver Spring Garden Club and is on the board of several other garden clubs and organizations.
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About Washington Gardener Magazine:
Washington Gardener Magazine is the gardening publication published specifically for the local metro area — zones 6-7 — Washington DC and its suburbs. We sent out our premiere issue in March/April 2005 and we are now about to be celebrating our 17th anniversary.
The content of the magazine gives real examples that you can use immediately in your own garden. It will save you time and show you how to stretch your garden resources. It will inspire you with new ideas and new ways of looking at things. With all of that, we don’t forget to include a heavy dose of whimsy, a sense of humor, and a portion of wonder. We have some great stories in the works — from Unique Plant Combinations to Starting a Water Garden to Growing Vegetables in Tight Spaces — we can’t wait to share them with our readers!
If you are a DC-area gardener, you’ll love Washington Gardener magazine! Subscribe today at https://washingtongardener.blogspot.com/.
The magazine is written entirely by local area gardeners. They have real-world experience with the same problems you experience in your own gardens. They’ll be sharing their thoughts on what to plant in deep shade, how to cover bare spots, which annuals work best throughout the humid DC summers, and much more.

Kristin Ohlson is a writer from Portland, Oregon. Her new book Sweet in Tooth and Claw: Stories of Generosity and Cooperation in the Natural World – which the Wall Street Journal calls “excellent and illuminating”--probes the mutually beneficial relationships among living things that undergird the natural world. Her last book was The Soil Will Save Us: How Scientists, Farmers and Foodies are Healing the Soil to Save the Planet, which the Los Angeles Times calls “a hopeful book and a necessary one…. a fast-paced and entertaining shot across the bow of mainstream thinking about land use.” She appeared in the award-winning documentary film, Kiss the Ground, to speak about the connection between soil health and climate health.
Ohlson’s articles have been published in the New York Times, Orion, Discover, Gourmet, Oprah, and many other print and online publications. Her magazine work has been anthologized in Best American Science Writing and Best American Food Writing.

Nykia Perez Kibler
Nykia Perez Kibler, co-founder of Philly Tree People (501c3), is an ISA Certified Arborist® with a Master in Environmental Studies degree with a focus on Environmental Biology from the University of Pennsylvania (Penn). She also has a Master in Liberal Arts from Penn, a Certificate in Landscape Plants from Temple University, a Master of Library & Information Science from The University at Buffalo, and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Fine Art Photography from Rochester Institute of Technology. Her two capstones from Penn were: “Philly Tree People: A Case Study on the Formation of a Non-profit Community-based Tree Planting and Tree Care Organization" where she outlined the Pruning Club program and "Management of the Urban Forest: A Zip Code Level Approach" where she outlined the plan for a Green Skills Youth program both of which were heavily modeled after programs after UC (University City) Green in West Philadelphia. She was an intern at Bowman’s Hill Wildflower Preserve where she worked in their native plant nursery, participated in interpretation activities, led guided walks for families, assisted with grounds maintenance, marketing, and data collection. Nykia is generally interested in ecological restoration, urban ecology, urban wildlife, ornithology, wetlands, urban forestry, native plants, biological conservation, road ecology, environmental education, nonprofit leadership, urban orchards, food gardening, green walls, children’s play spaces/gardens, and citizen science. Professionally, she works as a library director and research librarian providing and developing research services for faculty and graduate students at Penn, supporting grants, and disseminating research results via websites and social media. She’s also a girl scout troop leader and engages youth in tree planting, pollinator gardening, camping, and citizen science.

Jacelyn Blank
Jacelyn Blank is an ISA Certified Arborist® with a bachelor’s in fine arts and a master’s in education with Pennsylvania teaching certifications in Elementary and Special Education. She is one of the three co-founders of the federally recognized not-for-profit Pennsylvania Horticultural Society Tree Tender organization, Philly Tree People. When Jacelyn isn’t volunteering her time with Philly Tree People she teaches preschool children part time at a not-for-profit play school in Fishtown called By My Side, where she focuses on child led play and interests, increasing students’ social emotional understandings through incidental teaching opportunities, as well as introducing students to a variety of environmental and art related educational experiences. She also co-founded the Friends of H.A. Brown, her local catchment public school where she completed her student teaching in 2011 and where her son currently attends.
Jacelyn launched her own small business; Blank Slate Trees and Gardens, in 2021 where she works with Philadelphia clients on landscape design, garden creation and maintenance, installation and care for trees and installation of plants for window boxes and planters with an integration of native plants. She is currently completing her Pollinator Steward Certificate through the worldwide organization, Pollinator Partnership. Her ultimate career goals are to combine her love of teaching, arboriculture, and horticulture by continuing Philly Tree People’s Green Corps, a youth employment, education and empowerment group hiring students living and attending school in the Kensington neighborhoods in order to encourage more urban youth to move into the Green Industry while caring for Kensington’s tree canopy and learning through hands-on experiences.

Since April 2016, Craig Roncace has been the Urban Park Manager for the University of Pennsylvania. The Urban Park Department consists of five shops, each with its own Supervisor, and 58 staff who represent two unions. The Urban Park operation covers campus landscaping/maintenance, athletic field management, Penn Park, all hard surface maintenance, and the campus-wide waste/recycling program.
Before Penn, Craig worked in multiple roles as the Grounds/Area Manager for Temple University, at both their Ambler and Main Campus locations.
Craig was first introduced to the landscaping world by way of the golf course. He gained hands-on knowledge at an early age and quickly developed a love for the outdoors. He earned a degree in turfgrass management from Rutgers University, and within a few years, became the Golf Course Superintendent for a local private golf course in New Jersey.
Craig spent three years as a landscape manager for a large New Jersey based landscaping corporation, where he managed multiple teams in both turfgrass and horticulture maintenance within the local New Jersey/Pennsylvania Region.
In addition to his turfgrass education, Craig earned his MBA from Temple University’s Fox School of Business, and his B.A. from Eastern University.
Craig is an active member of multiple committees at Penn. One is Penn’s Ecological Landscape and Stewardship Plan (ELSP) Committee. The ELSP committee helps ensure Penn continues its efforts, from planning/design to maintenance, of successfully following a more ecological landscape within the ever changing functionality of the campus. These efforts cover, but are not limited to, storm water management, mature tree preservation, native plants, research, and training.
In addition to his current position at Penn, Craig is the owner of SportsTurf Management Resources, LLC which is a sports turf, lawn, and landscaping consulting firm. Craig enjoys helping others manage their own properties, both residential and professional, with a portion of the proceeds going towards suicide awareness.

Markku Koivisto keeps an ear to the ground and an eye to the sky, connecting the needs of organizations around the world with the power of drone data. As Chief Business Development Officer, he combines analytical expertise with a can-do attitude to ensure GLOBHE delivers the right data to the right customer at the right time.

While a young industry, Markku brings many years of experience in developing drone operations around the world. Connecting to GLOBHE’s mission of making an impact on our planet, Markku has also contributed to peacekeeping missions as well as worked within the defense industry pursuing global business for a number of years.

Andrew Conboy
Andrew Conboy enjoys sharing his passion for trees and their many benefits with anyone who will listen. He is an ISA-certified arborist who most recently worked on the Urban Forestry team at the Morris Arboretum in Philadelphia.

In 2020, he created Colonial Canopy Trees, a non-profit organization that leads ecological restoration efforts in the greater Philadelphia area. In his free time, Andrew creates videos about environmental topics and shares them on social media.

Through his work, he hopes to inspire people and change the way we view and value our natural lands, native plants, and wildlife. He studied Environmental Science at Chestnut Hill College and Evolutionary Biology in graduate school at Lehigh University.

Karen Kabnick

After retiring in 2020, Karen Kabnick wanted to do everything she could to help mitigate the damages of climate change and habitat destruction. Karen met Andrew at a volunteer event and was thrilled to learn he, too, loved to rescue and nurture seedlings of native trees. They shared that hobby. She learned all about the countless benefits of trees and how to plant them from Andrew, friends, courses and reading, and wanted to use her new-found knowledge to help Andrew with Colonial Canopy Trees to restore our local canopy and re-establish wildlife habitats.

Rick Thaler
Rick Thaler was born and raised in Rochester New York. He tried going to college, but he didn’t stick with it. After looking for a job he was inspired by the Whole Earth Catalogue (WEC) and began to explore carpentry. His exploration of the carpentry trade led him to Corrales, New Mexico. It was in Corrales that he decided to resume his studies and attended the University of New Mexico but after one semester he dropped out again and started working in construction, building adobe houses, doing carpentry work, and making furniture. He was inspired by James Krenov, Sam Maloof, and Wharton Esherick, and deeply inspired by George Nakashima and his free-form but highly disciplined designs. Rick was also inspired by the solar renaissance in New Mexico and the idea of sustainable, low-waste building and living.

When Rick got married and his first child arrived he needed a reliable income and started working in a commercial wood shop. Eventually, he became a project manager and estimator, and after 10 years was able to buy the shop and ran the business on his own. Rick eventually grew the business into a $10 million-dollar-a-year business with 100 employees and did projects all over the southwest and around the country. Rick sold the business in 2019 and bought a portable sawmill to use as a hobby. After all of his carpentry work, he still thought of George Nakashima and his creations.

Rick’s son Jacob got interested in the sawmill and they started a business together making live edge slab planks. They wound up building a woodworking shop to go with the mill. Rick came full circle to his roots of making custom furniture. This time he had better equipment and an ideal place to work.

Live edge timber from local salvaged trees is now the backbone of their business. Rick and Jacob call it treeincarnation.net. They power the shop entirely with an array of solar panels. With all the carbon they are sequestering from tree rescues they are close to net carbon neutral in their business. Rick says they are a good example of combining sustainability, waste reduction, craft, and profitability for a right livelihood in environmentally difficult times.

Jacob Thaler

Jacob Thaler was born and raised in Corrales New Mexico. He never liked school and struggled to learn the way other people do. At age 16 he took the GED test and got his high school diploma. He worked at various jobs but realized that he didn’t want to work for someone else, so he opened his own business in Colorado. He had a successful business there from 2015 -2020. After finding that he had a daughter on the way he decided to sell his business and move back to New Mexico to be near family. Ariella was born right at the beginning of Covid, with a heart defect that required surgery at 10 days old. Jacob and his partner Angelica couldn’t work because they were in and out of the hospital for the next year. Now their daughter Ariella is a happy, healthy three years old now.

Jacob got interested in his dad’s hobby sawmill operation between hospital appointments, and they discovered that they liked working together. Jacob enjoyed both the mechanical aspect of running the mill and the joy of opening up ordinary logs and finding the beauty inside. They decided to make a business out of the mill with a focus on turning dead, downed, and unwanted trees into planks for sale. This part of the business quickly led to a full-scale furniture operation, along with custom milling for other people in the business. Jacob still runs the saw and operates the kiln and is learning the furniture-making trade from his dad and their shop partner. He is looking forward to growing the business and keeping it sustainable for the future.

Jeff Lowenfels is a humorous and entertaining lecturer. He is a reformed lawyer and author of Timber Press' award-winning and bestselling books, Teaming With Microbes: The Organic Gardener's Guide to The Soil Food Web and Teaming With Nutrients: The Organic Gardener’s Guide to Optimizing Plant Nutrition and completing the trilogy, Teaming With Fungi, The Organic Grower’s Guide to Mycorrhizae and Teaming With the Bacteria; The Organic Gardener’s Guide to Endophytic bacteria.

Hannah Lewis is the author of Mini-Forest Revolution: Using the Miyawaki Method to Rapidly Rewild the World, published in June 2022 by Chelsea Green. A French translation of the book was released in January 2023 by Editions Eyrolles in France. Hannah has a Master of Science in Sustainable Agriculture and Sociology from Iowa State University and a Bachelor of Art in Environmental Studies from Middlebury College. She lives in Minneapolis, where she works for the non-profit Renewing the Countryside to build sustainable local and regional food systems and to plant mini-forests.

Steve Ebner

Steve Ebner’s love affair with wood began in 1981 when he started working as a carpenter in Philadelphia. After twelve years of carpentry experience, he started his own furniture shop which would lead to the creation of Manayunk Timber, Inc., the premier urban sawmill in Philadelphia.

With a decreasing supply of reclaimed timber from old factories, Steve believes the future lies in the inexhaustible supply of local trees. Recently, he and his team planted a 3,000-square-foot forest of native trees and bushes, designed to mirror a Pennsylvania forest, in what was previously a parking lot on the lumber yard’s premises. Steve hopes that visitors to Manayunk Timber will make connections between the importance of preserving native trees and the furniture and building materials that enrich our everyday life.

Steve is legendary in the wood business for his vast knowledge of reclaimed and native timbers. In the last six years, he has been joined by his daughter, Rebecca, in operating Manayunk Timber. Together, they have gained national attention with a video on urban sawmilling.

Rebecca Ebner

Rebecca Ebner is the manager of Manayunk Timber. Bringing several years of experience working in organic vegetable and animal farms and organizations focused on expanding access to healthy foods in Philadelphia, she joined Manayunk Timber in 2015.

Rebecca graduated from Barnard College in 2012 with a BA in Urban Studies and Environmental Science. She brings a passion for urban sustainability and community engagement, a commitment to Philadelphia, and an involvement in creative and artistic projects to her work with Manayunk Timber. Moving forward, Rebecca’s focus is the future of the company; she hopes to continue Steve’s dreams and make Manayunk Timber a sustainable part of Philadelphia’s small-business community for years to come.

Roby Babcock is the Marketing Director at Iseli Nursery, a wholesale dwarf conifer and maple grower located in Boring, Oregon. Roby has a Bachelor of Arts in International Studies from the University of Oregon and a Master of Science in landscape architecture from the University of Arizona. After graduating from the University of Arizona, Roby managed an 11-acre cactus and tree nursery and did freelance design. When he returned to his home state of Oregon a decade later, he took a position at Portland Nursery and served in a variety of roles, including coordinating the displays and managing their ecommerce website. Gardening has been a passion since his childhood and he has created an expansive garden at his home that blends zone-defying cacti, agave, and succulents with specialty conifer specimens, manzanita, and plants native to the Pacific Northwest.

Roby is a photographer, and his passion has led to many opportunities, including his position at Iseli Nursery, in Boring Oregon. Roby is responsible for photographing new plants, updating the photo library, and documenting the garden. Developing social media content in combination with the Iseli website. He helps to communicate information about Iseli’s plants and goals as a company. Currently he is working with a team to produce the new catalog. He has also redesigned sections of the Jean Iseli Memorial Garden. This position has enabled him to learn about the hundreds of unique cultivars Iseli grows and the many steps in the process of bringing them to market.

Iseli Nursery has some exciting new offerings in the pipeline that Roby is excited to unveil. Be the first to hear about them in the coming months.

Carey Russell is a naturalist, photographer, and filmmaker.
He founded The Dendro Lab, a platform to foster a broader public
awareness of dendrology, and is the author of the soon-to-be-published Tree Identification for Everyone (And Why It Matters). As a photographer, he is the author of The New Arcadians: Photographs from Scout Camp and the upcoming photobook The Winter Forest.

While as a filmmaker, he has worked with director, Terrence Malick, as an associate producer and editor of The New World; assisted
cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki on The Tree of Life; and
directed and photographed the 10-part documentary series Tibetan
Stories.

Carey holds a master’s degree in forestry and is a
member of the International Dendrology Society. He’s a certified Interpretive Guide through the National Association for Interpretation and a certified Master Naturalist in New York State where he is also a licensed trail guide.

Leslie Berckes is the Executive Director of the Society of Municipal Arborists (SMA). She brings over a decade of experience in urban forestry to the organization, having served as the Executive Vice President and Des Moines Program Director for Trees Forever, a Midwest-based non-profit. Leslie is an ISA Certified Arborist and holds a master’s degree in Public Policy with an Environmental Policy emphasis from the University of Northern Iowa in addition to a bachelor’s degree in Marketing.

Jennifer Alger is President of Far West Forest Products and has been working with urban salvaged woods for over 25 years. She is the director of the Urban Wood Network Western Region, a membership network that connects tree managers, arborists, lumber producers, and makers to connect all links in the urban wood supply chain. She is also the founder of USRW Inc., which developed the first ever Urban Wood Standards for North America. These Standards will be a game-changer for the industry and for the first time allow Chain-of-Custody and certification for urban wood, known as USRW Certified Urban Wood. She has worked with an expert team of developers and customer experience specialists on the build-out of Urban Lumber Market with AncesTREE™ an inventory management system and enterprise application that will allow users to easily adhere to the industry Standards, track the chain of custody, manage their inventory, and better manage and grow their urban lumber businesses. Additionally, Jennifer has recently opened a store in California where Urban Wood Network members can sell their USRW Certified Urban Wood.