Casey Trees Part 1
We’re delighted to share our two-part interview with Andrew Schichtel, Chief Operating Officer at Casey Trees, a Washington, DC-based nonprofit established in 20001 by Betty Brown Casey committed to restoring, enhancing, and protecting the tree canopy of the nation’s capital.
Elizabeth: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Innovators, Artists, & Solutions series of Creativists in Dialogue, a podcast embracing the creative life. I’m Elizabeth Bruce.
Michael: And I’m Michael Oliver.
Elizabeth: And our guest today is Andrew Schichtel, Chief Operating Officer at Casey Trees. Andrew is a committed leader in the nonprofit urban forestry space with deep ties to the tree production and aboricultural industry. Andrew has been at Casey Trees for 14 years, shepherding the organization’s growth from four department areas and 25 staff planting a few hundred trees a year to six department areas and 70 staff planting over 6,500 a year. He oversees all aspects of Casey Trees’ leadership, ensuring their efforts remain on track toward achieving DC’s 40% tree canopy goal through execution of Casey Trees’ mission [00:01:00] to restore, enhance, and protect the tree canopy of our nation’s capital. Andrew is a graduate of Catholic University of America and a member of Leadership Greater Washington and several local boards. Welcome, Andrew.
Andrew: Thank you so much for having me.
Elizabeth: This series, Innovators, Artists, & Solutions, focuses on innovative ways individuals and organizations are galvanizing their creativity in innovative ways to solve real problems. So before we talk about the specifics of the organization and its history, could you share what you think is one of the most innovative aspects of Casey Trees?
Andrew: Yeah. Trees are important to Casey Trees, right? It’s in our title.
Elizabeth:Indeed, yes.
Andrew: But we are so much more than just trees. We take a very innovative approach to getting people to think about trees a little bit differently. We’re in fourth and fifth grade classrooms across Washington, DC doing STEM programming. We’re a certified land trust, we’re working to preserve and conserve lands across Washington, [00:02:00] DC. We have a big advocacy presence, working with local legislators to think about tree protections, working to protect all of those investments that we work so hard to make. And it’s really much more people focused than it is about the trees. Trees are the ultimate manifestation, but it’s a lot of work with people.
Elizabeth: Okay. I am really keen to hear more about the origin story of Casey Trees. Which I remember distinctly as a very bright spot in a lot of bad news in DC back in the 1990s, I think. And a quick and maybe random memory I have, which you can correct me if I’m wrong, I seem to remember that originally Betty Casey, I think the late Betty Casey, had also wanted to donate her home, which was over, I think, on Fox Hall Road. And dedicate some of her assets to building a new mayoral dwelling, but then Mayor Marion Barry, the [00:03:00] late Marion Barry, said no, he wasn’t going to move out of Ward 7 and Ward 8 to the Fox Hall Road neighborhood. I remember at the time being really grateful that the mayor did that since it meant that Betty Casey’s focus then became a hundred percent on DC’s tree canopy, which as someone who came to DC from both the Gulf Coast of Texas and the front range of Colorado, the trees in this area just continue to blow me away. Clearly this city needs its trees so much more than it needed a new mayoral home. So can you share maybe the larger origin story of Casey Trees?
Andrew: Yeah, that’s largely correct. And I guess everything happens for a reason or is meant to be how it all comes out. Mrs. Casey read an article in the Washington Post in 1999 and that article highlighted the canopy decline in Washington, DC. It looked at 1950, which DC had a tree canopy [00:04:00] coverage of 50% to present day at that time in 1999, a canopy coverage of 35%, an all time low. Mrs. Casey was an avid gardener, she was a member of the Garden Club of America and her late husband at the time, Eugene, was a tree lover. He loved trees. And she was looking for a way to remember his legacy and thought that Casey Trees or the concept of Casey Trees would be a great way to do that. And from that article, she was moved to be solutions-oriented and to start Casey Trees. And from there, that started in 2000-2001 in 2008 she donated her estate and family farm out in Berryville, Virginia, where we grow our nursery, our trees, as well as other financial resources at that time as well. Remarkable lady saw a problem and really had the foresight to think about a solution. And we’re all very fortunate for that.
Michael: I assume that 50% to 35% decline is probably mirrored nationally [00:05:00] or in many—sounds, it seems like it probably be mirrored across the country?
Andrew: Yeah, DC had very stressed budgets at that time. The forestry division was essentially a tree removal company.. They weren’t—right now they’re 45 staff. They were a couple of staff at that time. And they just couldn’t keep up with the work of what was demanded. They hadn’t put the resources or the investments to maintain the trees the way that they should have been. And they just had a little bit of a mess on their hands to be honest. And through our work over the years, we’ve been able to advocate for a better, more resourced division. And present day, they are the most funded urban forestry division unit in the United States and has more money per capita than any other city in the United States as well.
Michael: That feeds right into my next question. On your website, you talk, you have a lot of data points about the history of the city. And one of those data points is that in the [00:06:00] 19th century, the 1800s, Washington was known as the “City of Trees.” So I’m imagining that history influenced Casey Trees’ vision. Could you maybe just talk about that a little bit?
Andrew: Yeah,I mean we’re fortunate that even from the L’Enfant Plan to present day, trees are really a part of the culture of DC. And it’s, to your point from the Front Range or the Gulf Coast, it is hard not to walk around DC and just be in awe of some of the amazing trees that we have around the area. And we’re very fortunate that the constituents across DC also value trees in the same way. We know the last couple weeks in DC have been extremely hot and trees go a long way of just making life a little bit more comfortable and a little more livable for folks when we’re going through these crazy changes in climate.
Elizabeth: Yeah. Several years ago, speaking of data points—maybe 20 years ago, I think—Casey Trees, as I recall, mobilized this massive inventory of trees in DC. We have some old [00:07:00] friends, Raj and his late wife, Marjorie Berry, were part of the citizen volunteer core that fanned out into every single DC neighborhood and counted literally every single tree on every single block in this city. It was an extraordinary undertaking. So while we assume, but perhaps not, that was before your time at Casey Trees, you’ve been there a long time.
Andrew: It was before my time, yeah.
Elizabeth: I assume it’s part of the organizational legend. Can you talk a little bit more about that massive tree inventory mobilization?
Andrew: Yeah, it was really the first thing that Casey Trees set out to do. If you’re in a business or a government, the first thing is to have an assessment of what assets do you have and the condition of those assets. If you’re trying to sell ice, you need to know how many pounds or bags of ice you have to sell. Similarly in DC, what was the condition of the trees? And we set out to do an inventory or an analysis with volunteers. And at that time, the database was a little outdated, [00:08:00] it was very inaccurate, and so we saw a big opportunity to fill a void, to clean up some data, to have an actual analysis to let us chart out the path forward of a canopy goal. What’s even realistic, knowing what we have? And the interesting thing about the inventory at that time was that, again, it was the counting the trees and that process was really great training all those volunteers. We really created a mobilization or a cohort of like-minded caring individuals that really thought about trees differently.
One of my friends did a tree inventory. Her organization actually did a tree inventory with us. And she jokes to me this day that part of the training is you assess the quality of the tree. Is it a one or a two or a three in terms of the health of the tree and her team, when they’re driving down roads, we’ll be like, that’s a two, that’s a three. So if you’re cognizant of it, you think about trees and appreciate trees [00:09:00] in a different way. And the inventory really was the groundwork for Casey Trees and for Washington, DC to think about and demand better street trees throughout our city.
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Michael: So you mentioned the the heat we’ve been having in DC and on your website is another data point—a term that was on your website, an “urban heat island.” And so it may, I would love for you to describe exactly what an urban heat island is, and then what are some of the negative effects of that?
Andrew: Yeah so think of it this way. In Washington, DC, which this summer has been particularly warm, on the same day, same time, there can be a 15 degree difference if you are in tony, leafy, canopied, upper Northwest, or you are in Ivy City. So we’re talking about three–four mile drive maybe. And that temperature could be 80 degrees in upper Northwest and it could be 95 degrees over in Ivy City. And so you think about the impacts of a temperature swing that drastic in just a couple of [00:10:00] miles. Kids being able to play outside, access to the outdoors. Think about the health outcomes associated with that for folks that can enjoy the outside and exercise versus folks that are cooped up indoors or that can’t go outside and play.
Elizabeth: Who don’t have air conditioning.
Andrew: Or the cost associated with AC at 95 versus 80 degrees, right? There are a myriad of impacts that flow through a huge disparate temperature like that. And Washington, DC because of historical redlining and disparate racial segmentations of how DC has, to some degree, intentionally come out, there are massive disparate outcomes that are around heat, but also flow through public health issues, storm water issues, and a whole host of other things that can be a derivative of heat. So it’s pretty impactful. And trees are a very cheap, easy way to work to mitigate [00:11:00] or ameliorate that sort of problem.
Michael: So I’m assuming that the amelioration takes place if trees are integrated into a very specific space. As opposed to, Rock Creek Park has a lot of trees but it’s not going to necessarily lower the heat in a more of a tree desolate area that’s—
Andrew: They can only do so much. Yeah. Proximity is key. So you really want to be planting layered dense forest when and where possible. And that can be tricky in an urban environment. It’s not impossible, but it takes some intention to be able to do that and some thought.
Michael: Right. Speaking of the thought of creating urban spaces, clearly the world is increasingly urbanized. I read a book on China recently and like apparently every year for the last 30 years, they’ve built a city that can house 25 million people and that’s how many people move into the city. And we were having the same, in India, all the world is experiencing this [00:12:00] urbanization. So can you maybe talk about how we as a species are reeling under the sort of the negative effects of this urbanization and these heat islands that are being created? And how are the powers that be, how are city planners maybe helping to ameliorate when they come up with the designs for cities and neighborhoods, et cetera?
Andrew: Yeah. To some degree urbanization is good. Density is good. Livable, walkable cities, less carbon footprints, more resources concentrated in certain areas can all be a good thing. I think in DC we see this a lot where trees are pitted against other things. So it’s either housing or trees. It’s a versus a “yes, and” sort of situation. And policy makers or concerned individuals really need to be thinking about “yes, and.” Trees and. It can’t be bike lanes or trees. It really—who wants a bike lane on a hot, unshaded [00:13:00] road, right? That’s not going to be advantageous for anybody. There needs to be creative ways to integrate so it would be nice to have both amenities like bike lanes or parks, trees on properties, along with housing and infrastructure and all these other items that we need to have in a growing, dense city. But it can’t be in either, or it has to really be a “yes, and” sort of situation.
Michael: Is Casey Trees involved itself in, like, policies at that level?
Andrew: Yeah!
Michael: Internally, maybe micro, I was just thinking of, do we put the power lines underneath or do we put them up above?
Andrew: Yeah, exactly.
Michael: ‘Cause how many trees have been cut down just because of a power line?
Andrew: I know. The intersectionality around trees is really interesting because it does touch upon so many different aspects and when and where possible we aren’t afraid to lean into those sort of discussions. Now, our lane is trees, so we’re good about the trees and sometimes we need to rely on other experts to help us marry those two concepts, but it’s really important to look at where [00:14:00] we can integrate trees into some of these designs and make sure that they’re prioritized too. Because even with housing, who wants to move into a neighborhood that’s void of trees? That’s not going to be a productive sort of situation for folks. And we know that particularly with housing, lower income or Black or Brown families are going to bear the brunt of climate change and the impacts, right? So making sure that if we’re doing housing, we’re really doing it right in a thoughtful way that incorporates trees and other forms of resiliency to make sure that these individuals are set up for success in their homes. It doesn’t do anybody any favors and, frankly, it’s very costly not to incorporate trees in the long run. So there’s an economic reason for doing it as well.
Michael: Oh we used to have a, when we moved in there was a beautiful sort of green space right over, in that area and now there’s all this housing in there and I still mourn the loss of this absolutely gorgeous large, willow tree. They tried to save it, but I think just the stress of all the building around it ultimately killed it. It was just tragic. [00:15:00]
Elizabeth: Yeah. Speaking of costs, both human costs and environmental costs and economic costs, I want to drill down a little bit and get deeper into some of these data points about public health in terms of what are the negative costs of a decimated tree canopy and what are the pluses about it of a more lush, verdant tree canopy. Your website, Casey Trees’ website, talks about how in DC, 15.5% of DC residents have asthma. The national average for asthma in the population is about 13. 5%. Clearly, this is a very serious statistic in DC that represents a huge number of individuals and families, many of whom are children. Can you talk a little bit more specifically about the public health implications of a robust tree canopy in this city and elsewhere?
Andrew: Yeah, we talked about heat island a minute ago and what that can derive. We [00:16:00] also know in less canopied areas there’s higher levels or rates of pollution as well. And correlated with lower incomes and also different health disparities, too. Canopy is a huge indicator of a lot of items and it’s really important to work to blunt some of those and working to plant or integrate green spaces when and where possible. DC is fortunate because we do have a lot of great green spaces and public spaces throughout. They’re fairly accessible. There’s some arguments around how equitably maintained they are. But they’re at least dispersed in a way that make them accessible and somewhat usable for folks. But really making sure that the parts of the city that do not have access to green space or do not have access to as canopied or as much canopy as other areas that we really work to fix that problem. And most cities throughout the United States see the same correlation, you’ll [00:17:00] really be able to see those indicators also begin to turn around as well. They’re done at a macro level. They take a long time to turn around. Trees also take time to grow, too. You don’t snap your fingers and you have a mature, developed tree. They take time to grow. And these policies also take a long time to implement and make sure that they’re done in an effective way, too. But making sure that trees have to be a part of the discussion to work to turn the tide.
Michael: Now you’ve talked about a number of the positive effects already of trees on the heat islands, and et cetera, et cetera. But I’ve always been fascinated by the psychological impact of trees. Because, I mean I particularly am just, there’s nothing like a tree. And that’s why I truly mourn the loss of that willow. I truly went in the morning for several months. Anyway, so could maybe you talk a little bit about the sort of the mental health aspects of a [00:18:00] healthy tree canopy, and just the existence of trees in people’s lives. I don’t know how much research there is on that.
Andrew: Oh, yeah, quite a bit. I mentioned before, we’re in I think it’s 24 Title I schools doing STEM programming with fourth and fifth grade students. And a big part of that—and it’s reoccurring, so you get to know the kids throughout the year—and a big part of that is just introducing each fourth and fifth grade unit to where their green spaces are in their community. A lot of times kids don’t know where their parks are. They don’t know what they’re, what they have access to, what the benefits are, what the amenities are just in their own park. There’s a lot of times that the kids are like touching grass for the first time, you know what I mean? They just don’t, aren’t exposed to or understand the full breadth of the green spaces and what level of benefits trees can mean for their communities. And so there’s really cool environmental curriculum around STEM programming of just kids understanding how to [00:19:00] measure pollutants in their own community, taking temperature readings underneath the tree versus in the middle of a basketball court, just getting that sort of base-level understanding for kids.
But then there’s also the benefits of exercise and getting kids outdoors and moving. But also just being present in nature is also a big relaxing, calming thing. There’s a lot of studies that in more canopied areas, violent crime is also significantly reduced or decreased. So in DC, you see a lot of violent crime increase during the summer. The murders go up, carjackings go up, all of these things start to percolate up, and they originate or start in lower canopied parts of Washington, DC. And having a robust canopy can have a huge calming effect on individuals and mental health and certainly even as [00:20:00] dire as aggravated conditions as well with individuals.
Elizabeth: I think I’ve read about, I think it’s the Japanese who talk about forest bathing.
Andrew:Forest bathing, yes!
Elizabeth: Which is such a great concept. You just go into the natural environment.
Andrew: Yes, mindfulness and exposure and activating senses. We do some forest bathing classes in communities around DC too. And it’s, yeah, there’s amazing resources. Oxon Run Park is a huge park in Southeast. The Arboretum. We have really great green spaces that are, you wouldn’t believe you’re still in Washington, DC.
Elizabeth: Oh, yeah. And they’re free!
Andrew: And they’re all free. Yeah. Great respites and opportunities to just get away, but you’re still in DC.
Elizabeth: Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens.
Andrew: Kenilworth is another great one. Rock Creek.
Michael: One of my first jobs as a teenager was planting. And I think it’s very mentally healing.
Andrew: Yes. There was something I read the other day [00:21:00] about people who garden tend to live longer.
Elizabeth: Yes.
Andrew: And it’s the mobility and needing to stretch or, the activation of joints and everything, and just being outdoors and playing in dirt is all a good thing.
Elizabeth: I think even at the biochemical level, there’s something about soil. There’s all these nutrients. And I can’t walk through the science of it, but there’s just something—
Andrew: There’s got to be something there.
Elizabeth: —healing about it. On the flip side, I want to talk about how over the years—I’m an old person, so you’re going to hear some old-think here—but there has been resistance, just cultural resistance over the years. And I wonder if Casey Trees has encountered either resistance to the tree canopy, or more generally to issues of sustainability and environmental consciousness. Back in the ‘70s, during my we’ll call it misspent youth, but my salad days there, the environmental movement was first gaining strength nationally, as I recall. And they were, I was out [00:22:00] in Colorado and so environmentalism was a big part of the culture there. But there were different kinds of pushbacks. Issues about environmental regulation killing jobs and impeding progress and housing. You mentioned the either–or concept of housing. Issues about fossil fuels and nuclear energy, renewables that weren’t ready yet. Other concerns that came from different parts of the economic and political spectrum.
But I’m wondering if Casey Trees has encountered ongoing pushback not just from the kind of pro-fossil fuel part of the political spectrum, but from other more urban political perspectives about how environmentalism is for the elites, for people who can afford to go hiking in the pristine wilderness, and, I remember this from the ‘70s, wilderness and wildlife, environmentalists cared more about the animals and people particularly poor and disenfranchised communities and how the allocation of resources to the [00:23:00] environmental movement happened at the expense of jobs and housing and social programs, et cetera. As I said, that’s old-speak, but I wonder if Casey Trees has encountered any kind of pushback at the policy level about the importance of preserving and growing this city’s tree canopy? And whether you’ve had pushback specifically about that kind of focus?
Andrew: The short answer is yes. So the dirty little secret that we joke about internally at Casey Trees is that not a lot of people actually really like trees. Trees can be a little bit of a NIMBY sort of issue. Trees are great in certain spaces: parks, school grounds or something. But when they move to a closer proximity to a person, there’s a little more hesitancy around embracing trees to the fullest degree.
We’re a canopy organization. So the biggest bang for our buck is getting trees on private property. So we’re literally working with homeowners, rowhome to [00:24:00] rowhome, commercial corridors, hospitals, schools, universities, all that sort of stuff to get people to think about trees and a little bit of a different way.
And on the micro level, we hit tons of hesitations. Leaf litter, berries, or sap or fruit on cars, the cost of future maintenance or deferred maintenance could be great, having it fall on your house, something like that. Trees can be seen as a canary in the coal mine for gentrification or for displacement. So, other serious things. Misconceptions around nefarious activities or shielding drug trades or stuff like that, so it’s really, all of that exists, but getting people to think about trees or giving them an opening for them to talk to us about trees, we can work with those individuals to dispel some of those myths or to get people to think about trees in a little bit of a different way. And that takes [00:25:00] a long time. That’s generally not like a one sit-down conversation. It usually takes a little bit of time for people to think about trees in a little bit of a different way. And we don’t want to saddle somebody with a tree that they don’t really want. So we really want somebody to have the buy-in or the family to have the buy-in to choose that tree because we know they’ll be more likely to care for it, water it, call us if it they think something’s wrong or it’s got a little pest or “My leaf looks like this” or whatever. But we want that buy-in. And so that’s the micro level of just getting people to think about trees a little bit differently.
On the macro level, the canopy has increased but flatlined more recently at about 38% and we lost a percent down to 37%. And the rate of impervious surface is increasing at the same rate that the canopy decreased in the last analysis.
Michael: Impervious surface?
Andrew: So, concrete buildings, development, that sort of thing. So [00:26:00] there’s an amazing amount of development pressure in Washington, DC. Property values are very expensive and Casey Trees has a lot of resources, but there are a lot of other folks with a lot of motivations to get buildings built. And there’s financial items to be gained from that. And so it’s, it is certainly an uphill battle to get people to think about trees, certainly legislators to think about trees. And we, to Casey Trees’ long term benefit, have been very good about getting productive tree legislation passed that works to protect all the investments that not only Casey Trees has made, but also our tax-paying dollars in Washington, DC to protect all those efforts and make sure that they don’t go to waste.
Michael: So clearly part of what Casey Trees has to do is to get community buy-in, develop community partnerships. So if you could maybe just go through some of the [00:27:00] ways that you go about getting a community to buy into the whole idea of, “Okay, yeah, I’ll guess I’ll have to rake leaves.” Maybe just talk about that a little bit.
Andrew: We are steeled to the fact that we cannot do it alone. And oftentimes we aren’t the best messenger either. And we know that. So, there are great ambassadors or tree champions in every community that know their neighbors better than we do, that know the concerns of their community better than we do, and that are much more successful in talking to their neighbors or their community about trees in a way that resonates than we are. And we rely on individuals, neighbor to neighbor, different community groups, “friends of” groups to really work to communicate the value and benefit of trees to whoever frankly is willing to listen [00:28:00] and wants to learn a little bit more. But yeah, we are very fortunate that we have a lot of resources to be able to do a lot of outreach, but we also know that it’s not all about us and our staff, it’s really about the communities that we’re working with.
Michael: So these ambassadors, they’re probably people that know about trees, but do you also, do they sit down with you and get other—?
Andrew: Yeah, there can be. Yeah. So we have, like, easy things. If we meet a homeowner that absolutely loves their tree planting experience we have a little toolkit where they can copy and paste things that go into their Nextdoor neighborhood system. “Hey, got a great tree. Casey Trees is awesome. Love my experience. Here’s how you can get your own free tree.”
Elizabeth: This is Nextdoor, the online—
Andrew: Exactly. The listserv. Yeah, exactly. And one, we don’t have access to all of those. You need to have people that are in the community that can send those emails or that, with that Facebook group or whatever. And we also know that people tend [00:29:00] to make decisions based on the trust factor of people that they know in their communities. And so, just empowering folks a little bit tends to go a long way.
Michael: Facts don’t persuade people. It’s really more human interaction.
Andrew: Exactly. Our tree ambassador program, that is also with kind of those tree champions in communities. And they may do what they think is best for their community. Some folks go to ANC meetings and talk about trees. Some folks will go literally door to door knocking, handout pamphlets, put a little door hanger on, leave a little note. We can help craft some of that. And a lot of times these folks are not ISA-certified arborists. They’re just concerned, passionate individuals that love trees and want to be a little impactful in their community. And just a little bit of information, a little bit of empowerment, and they are ready to go.
Michael: I don’t think we’ve had any of those in our neighborhood. No one’s come to our door yet!
Andrew: They’re currently, right now, they’re primarily in Ward 8.
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Casey Trees Part 2
We’re delighted to share our two-part interview with Andrew Schichtel, Chief Operating Officer at Casey Trees, a Washington, DC-based nonprofit established in 20001 by Betty Brown Casey committed to restoring, enhancing, and protecting the tree canopy of the nation’s capital.
Elizabeth: I know that part of this [00:30:00] citizen forester, tree advocate, et cetera, you can adopt a tree? Am I remembering correctly? That you, the resident, you don’t need to be a homeowner, but you as a neighborhood resident can, if you’re worried about a little baby tree that was recently planted in your neighborhood, you can sign on to water it as per, kind of, instructions. You have your, “The Leaflet,” I think it’s called, that is your newsletter, that says, “It’s time to water the trees, folks.” Can you just talk a little bit about that little micro step that residents can take?
Andrew: Right. It doesn’t have to be this massive choice of, like ,you’re signing on to do, to go door knocking on a Saturday. There’s little action points that can be as small as just taking care of the street trees that are literally in front of your home, making sure that they have water. We’ve had a very dry July here in DC, and engaged homeowners that just go out and water trees goes a very long way. And those are little things. Other items, if you [00:31:00] enjoy lobbying—we’re in DC, there might be a lot of politically active individuals—thinking about writing a letter to your council member or advocating in a council hearing for trees. There’s a whole bunch of different access points to get involved that can cater to personal interests or growth opportunities for folks, volunteer opportunities. There’s just tons of little access points.
Elizabeth: Yeah. It seems like this—our kids are well into adulthood now, but adopting a tree is the kind of thing a young child can wrap their heads around. I’m pretty powerless to change these big political systems, even at the adult level. And there is a sense of agency involved in being able to just do something at the concrete level that doesn’t necessarily require you to sign up for this political persuasion or that political persuasion. I would assume there are a lot of families who get involved in sort of ambassador tree support. Is there a sort of particular appeal that families [00:32:00] have?
Andrew: I wouldn’t say that we actually have too many families that do the ambassador work like that. We do have family programming at Casey Trees that works to engage the whole family and they’re fun little classes. We have CTPs or community tree plantings is what we call them. And so that could be a good access point for families to participate, particularly in their communities to think about trees. And then we also have a ton of maintenance volunteer experiences as well. That’s literally just watering the trees that we planted. This is a great environment for kids to run around with buckets on hot summer days. It could be a fun little family event, too.
Michael: Let’s talk about this tree farm out in Berryville, Virginia. So yeah, maybe how it’s organized, maybe the, I’d love to hear what the variety of trees that you decided to grow there and maybe—
Andrew: Mrs. Casey, when she donated the farm to Casey Trees, had one request and that was that we grow trees. And we are living up to that [00:33:00] request. We have about 35,000 trees in the ground, a total inventory out of the farm, and that yields about 10,000 or so trees per year that we’re harvesting and shipping into DC for our own uses and tree planting operations in DC.
Michael: 10,000 a year?
Andrew: Yes.
Michael: Wow.
Andrew: And then we’re, we have partnerships with Washington, DC the Urban Forestry Division or the DC State Nursery, and they buy a cohort of trees that their contractors also plant around DC. And then we sell some to other municipalities and other nonprofits in the area. And so we have, we grow about 40–45 different species of trees out at the farm, primarily large and medium-sized canopy trees. If we’re going to go through the effort to get people to think about trees, we want them to be large. And they are primarily native species or at least non-invasive. And we grow them in a root controlled bag versus B&B. They’re a little bit lighter. They’re [00:34:00] easier for volunteers to manage and navigate. And also considerations for the carbon footprint as well. You can fit a lot more on an 18-wheeler than what you would in a typical B&B or a bald-and-burlapped production cycle.
Elizabeth: I was going to say that I don’t think a lot of people in this city are aware that Casey Trees actually gives away free, native, or as you say, non-invasive trees. As somebody who’s a lifelong bargain hunter, I always found this to be a remarkable opportunity. So I wanted to get really granular, if you could walk us through sort of the steps if you’re a homeowner in DC and you want a new tree, what are the steps? How does that happen?
Andrew: So every one of our programs at Casey Trees, they’re all free. So that’s the first step. So whether it’s classes or any of the tree care or community events that we do, everything is free. We have our free tree planting program. You can sign up online on our website. And you have, [00:35:00] that gets you, you’re not committed to anything, it’s just really a consultation with an arborist. So even if you’re hesitant about trees or you’re not quite sure you’re on the fence, signing up and doing the consultation really does no harm. You can just talk about if you have any issues or hesitations. If you have a tree that you like, sometimes people are like, “I would love a giant oak in my backyard.” Not every site can accommodate a giant oak and that may not be the best tree for that space. And so, an arborist will just help foster that conversation around, what’s a good tree for your backyard and based on your needs and considerations and how you want to use that space. And then from there, it’s really up to the homeowner to think about it, to consider what they really want, and when they’re ready to engage, let Casey Tree staff know what tree you would like. And then we will come back and schedule a planting opportunity for that tree. And we will plant the tree as well.
Elizabeth: So do you have to coordinate with Washington Gas, or any— [00:36:00]
Andrew: Oh, yeah. Utilities, all that stuff.
Elizabeth: And issues of the tree growing into the foundation of the house or any of these concerns that you might have.
Andrew: And that would be exactly why it’s important to have an arborist walk you through that process because one of our trained staff would be able to assess all of those different concerns to make sure that they’re all being addressed and that the homeowner is comfortable.
Elizabeth: Right. So great.
Michael: You mentioned community tree plantings, right? I can only imagine those are positive experiences of the community. It comes to, could you, are there any stories that you could share that would lift everyone’s spirit in this age of bad news?
Andrew: So much bad news. Before COVID, we used to do probably 15 of these a season, so about 30 a year and they were just spread out throughout the city. They’re in places, generally communal sort of places, parks or public housing places where [00:37:00] there’s space to congregate, talk about the tree planting opportunities at the beginning, talk about what Casey Trees is really there to do, make sure that people know the different support mechanisms after the planting. And then people break out into groups and work to plant the trees that we’ve brought on site. They can range from, we do, we have a school tree planting program too, where there might just be 10 trees or so on a school that kids are helping us plant, to literally hundreds of trees on a site. Mount Olivet over in Ivy City, which is the heat island example, huge cemetery, massive space, perfect for a lot of trees. We’ve planted over a thousand trees on Mount Olivet over the years.
Michael: That makes me, I went, a number of years ago, I went to Auroville in India, it’s this international city that was, the Indian government allowed these people to move into this place that was devastated. There was this erosion, just nothing. And now there’s like jungles [00:38:00] growing because they came in and they reclaimed it. And I was just thinking Casey Trees have been around long enough, planting trees that they have, here it was before and here it is now. Do you have places like, maybe this place you just mentioned—?
Andrew: It’s like, you spoke with our executive director, he loves the visual of a before and after photo because they’re so powerful. A lot of times, yeah, we’re going to places that—and it’s one of the reasons why I think people are so gravitated towards tree planting too, because you show up on a site where you see the impacts of your work literally that day. Immediately. And it’s pretty impressive. And as time passes, and particularly you give trees maybe five or seven years to grow and develop, the impact or the before and after picture from the same vantage point is pretty impressive. And we have tons of those. If you go, if you drive with any of our tree planting crew in a car, the car ride is so annoying because all they do is highlight all the trees they have [00:39:00] planted, and which year—
Elizabeth:“Look at that! There’s Johnny!”
Andrew:—and why that hole was so hard to dig, or what bricks they found there, or whatever. There are just tons of examples like that where, you know, we’re planting where trees are not. So, that sort of visual is more often the case than going in an already canopied area and supporting trees.
Elizabeth: Even on our block, we’ve lost most of our really big trees from—
Michael: We have one left.
Elizabeth: Yeah, but there was a dead tree in front of our house years ago. It was just a squirrel tree and the city finally took it down. But Casey Trees, I think, came in and planted a whole bank of redbuds. And they’re gorgeous now. They’ve really grown, and they’re just beautiful. And they have these fantastic blossoms.
Michael: They’re a medium sized tree, I believe.
Andrew: Yeah. They might be a little small. But that’s okay. They might be under power lines or something. They could be a perfectly situated tree for that [00:40:00] space.
Elizabeth: Which is, I think, a part of what you all do is—because a lot of trees, as Michael mentioned, you have to trim them back because of power lines. But there are trees that are medium height so that they don’t interfere.
Andrew: Exactly.
Elizabeth: Anyway, speaking of the DC community, Michael and I have both been in this city for over 40 years, although we’re not native Washingtonians, but it is evident in recent years how dedicated the city has become to becoming a, quote, “flagship green city.” Obviously, you would know much better than we do how the local government has been rallying around issues like increased green space and walkability and bike lanes and other forms of public transit like bike shares and scooter shares and there’s a whole push to develop housing density near metro stations. And I remember back in the 1990s, some local folks were really pushing energy efficiency, for example, as a way to preserve public [00:41:00] schools that were going to be closed because of under enrollment and budget shortfalls, et cetera. So there’s been this kind of momentum of the green agenda in this city that has moved forward and backwards and kind of stayed in the same place, but over the last 40, 50 years. Can you talk about any kinds of relationships or collaborations that happened between both Casey Trees and other sort of advocate organizations from green space?
Andrew: There’s tons. And yeah, we’ve been very fortunate to—I think the environmental movement has moved past some of those scare tactics in really effective ways. And a lot of it’s just economic. Solar panels are a perfect example. They’ve now become accessible. They’re made in a pretty—I was going to say cheap, but maybe not cheap manner, but less expensive. Affordable.
Elizabeth: Cost effective.
Andrew: Yes, exactly.
Michael: They last longer.
Andrew: They last longer. They have real tangible benefits to homeowners with utility costs. And [00:42:00] there’s great government programs that help foster that along. The e-bike program in DC sold out on the first day. There’s a thirst for these types of things. The free tree program that I was talking about, we’ve been doing this since 2009-ish and we’ve always met our targets. There’s a desire and thirst for individuals to engage in environmental initiatives. But also just the economics all make sense in all of these endeavors, too. Which goes a long way to helping convince people. Being altruistic is always nice, but if it also makes your pocketbook happy, it also goes a long way to pushing the needle as well.
Michael: And for our neighborhood listeners Brookland is where you’re located, where we live. Do you have collaborators right in the Brookland neighborhood?
Andrew: Absolutely. When we moved to Brookland in 2010, Ward 5 is consistently one of our most engaged [00:43:00] wards. And some of that has to do with, I think, just us being physically present. It’s convenient. We get a lot of people dropping by the office. 12th Street is a major, not a major corridor like Rhode Island, but a lot of people pass by and are reminded about Casey Trees. And so, we just have a lot of engaged citizens in Ward 5 that really love the work that we’re doing. And we plant a lot of trees in Ward 5. Langdon Park, I’m not sure if either of you have been in Langdon Park, but there’s a cohort of, we call them the Langdon ladies, that during COVID have really worked to remove invasive vines and free trees in their forested areas to get a second chance and to really thrive and just have really activated the space. And frankly, they’ve taken that sort of model and are trying to apply it citywide. And there is legislation that’s in the pipeline to do that as well.
Elizabeth: I think we have a friend, Mary Pat Rowland. [00:44:00]
Andrew: She’s one of the ladies.Yeah, she’s great. And there’s just a whole host of great “friends of” groups across the city. Friends of Oxon Run, Friends of Anacostia Park. Ward 8 Woods is another great group that does really great work down in Ward 8 cleaning up forested areas. Student Conservation Association is another one with youth development and workforce development as well. There’s just tons of great partnerships across the city that either may not have a tree focus but are good ways to partner and we have complementary sort of missions.
Michael: And I assume that concern about the tree canopy is also a global issue and so they’re probably, in other cities in the US but also just internationally, there’s probably, are you in communication or connection with any of these organizations outside the city or outside the country?
Andrew: Oh, yeah. I mean, and so nationally in the United States, there’s 250, maybe 300 members of the [00:45:00] Alliance for Community Trees, which are just Casey Trees type groups across the United States. There were last, actually about a year ago, the Inflation Reduction Act legislation came out, and I believe 485 different groups were awarded funds through that initiative as well. And that was a billion and a half dollars. So there’s a lot of really great groups across the United States that are doing very similar work that Casey Trees is doing, but specific or niche to their city and their demographics and the concerns or needs of what they’re working with.
Elizabeth: I want to talk for a minute about the organizational culture of Casey Trees. As a few people know, our son, Dylan Oliver, who’s now 32, was on the Casey Trees water-by-cycle crew back in 2010, right after he graduated from what was then Wilson High School. And it was fortunately really close by, so he could roll out of bed in no time. But it was a really [00:46:00] rigorous selection process, as we recall, and a rigorous work schedule, and the crew got paid pretty well, as I recall. It was nine bucks an hour in 2010, which was pretty good for an 18 year old. But it was so impressive, because the expectations were so high. You were, you couldn’t be late more than once. You couldn’t miss more than a day all summer. You had to really have a lot of stamina and a strong work ethic and, anyway, these expectations, these very high expectations, were just great for young people. And I know that you’ve said that particular crew isn’t in operation anymore with young people. But I want to just get you to talk a little bit about all the good things that come from having this organizational culture of high expectations for the workforce, and then also the collaborative work you do with volunteer teams. It’s just a really remarkable part of your whole ethos.
Andrew: Yeah. With staff at Casey Trees, we have just a [00:47:00] very great, dedicated cohort of individuals that are very passionate, as you can imagine, about the work that they’re doing. And Casey Tree’s side of the bargain is, we really have competitive salaries and we work to make sure that folks have really robust benefit packages as well. And it’s so important for folks to realize when they’re working at CaseyTrees that it’s a big team environment. The crews that you were mentioning work in the tree operations department, and if one individual is late in the truck, the whole truck can’t go, and that has a cascading effect to the homeowner that we’re trying to work with or the donor or the project that we’re invested in. And it’s just really important that folks understand the responsibilities that they have as a member of the team, no matter what role they are playing and the importance of the work that they’re doing for Casey Trees. And sometimes just being on time and showing up [00:48:00] goes a very long way to being successful. And for the youth program that you were talking about that your son got to participate in, it was like a little jobs training-y sort of program at that time, too. And we have little different professional development, I think there was a tree climbing aspect to it and fun stuff, but really just trying to work to make sure that the kids were ready for, like, their first job or had some of the expectations laid out. So, yeah, hopefully it was successful.
Elizabeth: It was! Michael and I both come out of theater. So, you know, reliability is everything. You can’t not show up for rehearsal.
Andrew:Yes, exactly.
Elizabeth: At the risk of belaboring this point about these high expectations that were so wonderful to us as parents and I think in Dylan’s crew they watered something like 4,500 trees that summer. It was really an intense experience. But at the macro level, this, as you say, this culture of responsibility seems to embody, truly, this [00:49:00] urgent responsibility that we humans have increasingly to the planet to really step up and be responsible and reliable and committed and even passionate about sustaining the natural world and the human world and just getting it together from all these years of not having it together. Can you talk a little more philosophically about this ethos of sustainability and responsibility and how it plays out in the hearts and minds of individuals who’ve been involved with it?
Andrew: Yeah. I think it goes back to the staffing component and just the team is so invested in the work that they’re doing, it’s contagious. And it’s in all of the work that we’re doing at Casey Trees. And so it’s hard to escape or turn it off. And so it really is just a natural part of the organization. And I think, folks particularly in our space, are very aware of the urgency and the direness of what we’re working to mitigate and just the seriousness of it, too. So, it makes it very [00:50:00] easy to meet folks where they are, especially when they’re so energized and excited about what they’re doing every day.
Michael: A number of years ago, I read a book by Charles Eisenstein, Climate: A New Story. I don’t know if you’ve read that, but it was all addressing climate change, but he was saying that we need a new narrative because people agree more on the need to revitalize the earth and protect the natural environment, the tree canopy, etc.. And it made me think much more about positive approaches to unifying people around the need to heal the earth. But it raises this question of this balance between, and you mentioned this earlier about, the environmental movement had gotten negative and dire warnings and fear, but the Eisenstein book really was to want to celebrate this [00:51:00] revitalization and the root, like regenerative farming and that kind of approach. Could you maybe just talk about this balance between the urgency that you just mentioned, but then appealing to our better spirits or our better nature and trying to get people to take it as an urgent issue without getting stressed and running away from it? Because I think they run away from it when they get too stressed.
Andrew: I think it’s easy to get wrapped up in the work at Casey Trees. But the work that we’re doing is hopeful. And so I think that helps to blunt some of the starkness of the macro bad news of what we’re challenged with. Our team gets up and they are solutions oriented. They are meeting the need of the day and they are looking to blunt the impacts of tomorrow. And I just think that makes for a [00:52:00] hopeful sort of environment. We’ve also positioned ourselves organizationally to really be working in less canopied areas, right? We’re a canopy organization. So we’re working in the places that need it the most and that will see the biggest impact or the biggest benefit. And that just makes for, I think, an easy call to your day. If you know that every day in and out you’re working to meet that need it just makes it easy for the type of staffer that wants to work at a tree organization and a nonprofit. It just makes it natural and pretty easy.
Elizabeth: Michael and I are both lifelong educators and, oh man, you work with young people, you’ve got to be hopeful. You can’t just dump all this negativity on young people or you’re just really doing a disservice.
Organizationally, I want to switch gears a little bit and talk about the organizational model of Casey Trees, which as the COO, the Chief Operating Officer, is clearly your bailiwick. Can you give us some broad strokes characterizations of the organization’s structure? How do you manage the multi faceted operations of the [00:53:00] organization’s mission?
Andrew: Casey Trees is such a fun place to work. Of course, we have a nursery out in Virginia that we talked about. We have a vertically integrated supply chain. Our tree operations department and our nursery out of Virginia work fairly seamlessly together with folks understanding the full cycle of what tree production really looks like which is probably pretty rare or not like the norm in a typical nonprofit. But we also are a land conservation group. We’re a certified land trust. We’re the only certified land trust in Washington, DC, and the only one in Prince George’s County as well. And we’re, land trusts typically are looking to preserve, a Yellowstone or, a big swaths of land or much larger swaths of land. We’re working in an urban environment to do postage-size backyards or strategic parcels that make sense to preserve them for green space and trees.
We have great advocates where we have very [00:54:00] passionate people that are committed to communicating to council members to impact legislation. The STEM programming and fourth and fifth grade students, non-school time also, we have programming for kids during summer breaks or spring break camps. There’s just so much programming and fun, dynamic things that we’re doing that just makes for a fun, collaborative environment.
And then also just being able to rely on all the team members at Casey Trees to deliver all of those programs. Myself and Mark, you cannot possibly be an expert in every one of those spaces that you need to rely on people to do really great dynamic programming and our team tends to deliver. So it makes for a very fun place to work.
Michael: You mentioned that the space here in Brookland where Casey Trees is housed, I remember, I think Elizabeth and I both visited that space, right? When it hadn’t opened yet. I think it was still in development. Could you maybe just talk about it? Anyway, could you maybe just talk about the innovations of [00:55:00] that space?
Andrew: It’s funny, so that was, what, 14 years ago, and it was innovative at that time, and fortunate enough for the environment writ large, a lot of people have adopted those practices and have applied them, so they’re not super savvy or nuanced anymore.
Michael: But those are happy innovations!
Andrew: Yes, that’s a good thing! When they’re adopted, that’s great. But we have three different types of green roofs that have different mediums and plant material that we did different tests to see how they would absorb stormwater differently and capturing clean water before it goes into storm drains. And ours flow into a major rain garden that has really deep soil volume and can grow and support massive shade trees. So, just a really great example of how you can have a little mini forest in a pretty urban environment. And our street tree pits along the street have cutouts for stormwater to flow into them so they don’t [00:56:00] go into storm drains. But the soil is also connected to underneath the sidewalk into the rain garden on our property. So, the street trees have a lot more space to put their roots. And just have a lot more soil volume to spread out, allow them to get much bigger and just a healthier canopy. It was very innovative and cool at the time, and you can see examples of, particularly down in Navy Yard, newer developments have really adopted. And you’ll, if you see the curb cutouts, you’ll start to notice little different aspects to the tree pits, significantly larger tree pits as well. Some that are a little sunken in lower to absorb higher rainwater volumes. Just little practices like that, that have become far more normalized since 2010.
Michael: So, just a point of curiosity, how many trees do you need to have in order for it to become a forest? I ask because I remember being at the University of Maryland and there was this one tree and it had a sign on it [00:57:00] that said “forest” and I was going, “One tree?” I would assume you have to have at least two, right?
Andrew: There’s different measuring tools on how what would constitute a forest. So for, and I forget off the top of my head what the—in DC we’re interested, oftentimes, in forest patches, ‘cause they’re smaller, they’re dense, they have the multi-layer foliage that a forest would have, but they’re not, it’s not Rock Creek Park, right? Like these are like a couple rowhome-size lots that are smaller, but they have a density to them that serve as a forest. There’s different measuring tools. They have to be like five feet deep or in from the side or different things like that. So it depends on what type of study or what, frankly, who you ask. But there’s different measuring tools to figure that out.
Elizabeth: The headquarters here over on 12th Street in [00:58:00] Northeast, you also converted this old gas station, which is, it’s your operational center with all the tools and things, so it doesn’t look like a gas station anymore.
But anyway, here we are. We’ve been talking to you, Andrew, for all these many minutes, and we don’t know anything about your story. So could you tell us a little bit about where you come from? What’s your background? Where did your passion for trees and sustainability come from?
Andrew: Yeah, so I actually, like you I, maybe not like you, but I grew up on a nursery out in Walla Walla, Washington. So I grew up around trees from a very early age. And when I was in college at Catholic University, right up the road, Casey Trees was doing a volunteer tree planting at the university and they actually purchased trees from my parents’ nursery. And so I was a little mole to go see how the trees looked at the volunteer planting for my parents. And that’s how I got engaged with Casey Trees. And there was a little opening, a pretty much a glorified [00:59:00] internship after college, and started at Casey Trees and have been there pretty much ever since. Yeah.
Elizabeth: I’m sure your family is really excited that there’s this continuum going on.
Andrew: Yes, exactly. Tree adjacent or tree related careers.
Michael: So, growing up on a—I’ve always been fascinated by the notion of the language of trees and the fact that they, like in a forest, I guess they communicate. Could you maybe explain what exactly that means?
Andrew: Nurseries are a little more controlled than that. They’re grown in a specific way to be harvested and then transported into other places. So they don’t have the same sort of naturalized planting landscape like that would occur. They’re grown in rows with very specific spacing for watering.
Michael: So it’s the language of the nursery that sort of controls their work, their communication with each other as opposed to the natural.
Andrew: Sometimes, even at our nursery in Berryville too, there will be [01:00:00] different nutrient considerations that happen in certain areas of the field. So certain fields may be better suited for different species that we would want to accommodate when we’re laying those fields out. So, yeah, there’s a whole, the agricultural industry and the nursery practices are just, it’s like gardening. They’re very humbling. And they’re just very interesting science to making sure that trees are grown in a very specific way.
Michael: So we’ve talked about the sustainability of the natural world, and the growth of the tree canopy, et cetera, but as a nonprofit organization that has its own sort of level of sustainability, or its own challenges of sustaining an organization for now, what is it? It’s been around for how long now?
Elizabeth: 20-some years.
Andrew: Since 2001, so, yeah, about 23 years.
Michael: So that’s a challenge. That’s a feat in and of itself. Could you maybe just talk a little bit about the sustaining of the organization and the growth of the organization?
Andrew: Yeah, so when I started in 2010, I was the 18th hire and we have a [01:01:00] staff of 65 right now. And so we, Mrs. Casey, when she started Casey Trees and started her farm and donated her farm, gifted us with an endowment as well. So half of our budget comes from the spending from our earnings on our investment portfolio and our endowment. And then the other half, we fundraise. Grants, corporate giving, individual gifts, that sort of thing.
Elizabeth: Well, a question we asked all of our interviewees—this has been wonderful talking with you, Andrew—but something we always ask our interviewees is what practical, tangible advice they have for our listeners on how to nurture and sustain their own creativity or their own innovation. And perhaps in the case of Casey Trees, their own sustainability, so if you have any kind of advice?
Andrew: I would say just don’t be afraid to start. There’s so many different ways to get involved in the green industry. Figure out what your goals are, what your [01:02:00] interests are. Are you looking to push yourself out of your comfort zone? Are you looking to hone a skill that you already have? What are your goals and figure out a way to align them with a group like Casey Treece or one of our great colleagues or sister organizations throughout the country. There’s tons of great groups and it’s a lovely, collaborative, fun environment to be a part of.
Elizabeth: Wonderful. So what’s next for Casey Trees and are there initiatives or goals that you want to share with our listeners? And finally, how can people learn more about you and the impressive work of Casey Trees?
Andrew: Yeah, go to our website, caseytrees.org. We have all of our events posted. Sign up for our Leaflet, it comes out every Monday, keeps you up to date on all the different things, the fun things that we have going on at Casey Trees. Volunteer events, advocacy events, ways to plant a tree on your home or private property. And think about other ways to, it doesn’t have to be private [01:03:00] property, it could be houses of worship, schools, universities, that type of thing too. So yeah, there’s just tons of different ways to get involved. And we’d love to have a big umbrella approach. Don’t be shy about reaching out to Casey Trees.
Elizabeth: Sounds great. Thank you so much, Andrew Schichtel, who is the COO, the Chief Operating Officer. You’re a young man to be a Chief Operating Officer—
Andrew: Thank you.
Elizabeth: —of the wonderful organization, Casey Trees, which is here in Washington, DC and doing amazing, wonderful work. So thank you so much for joining us.
Andrew: Thank you both for hosting me today and chatting about trees. Who doesn’t love a day that starts talking about the wonderful benefits of trees?
Elizabeth: Indeed. Alright. Thank you all for listening. This has been Creativists In Dialogue’s Innovators, Artists, & Solutions series.
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