How to Do Urban Wood Webinar Series

The Urban Wood Network presents the “How to do Urban Wood” webinar series, a series of webinars during which experts in the urban wood field will share how they’ve successfully utilized urban wood. Urban wood enthusiasts from every link in the urban wood supply chain will gain a better understanding of how others in every link of the supply chain have successfully been involved in utilizing urban through their own ingenuity and through networking with others in the urban wood community.

The Urban Wood Network invites municipalities, arborists, sawyers, woodworkers and all others interested in helping advance the urban wood movement to participate in one or all of these 90-minute webinars.

Webinar #1: Urban Tree Removals – Reducing Costs and Promoting Utilization

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Urban forests can be sustainably managed from ‘seed to sawdust’ by capturing valuable urban forest products from urban trees that need to be removed. This webinar will show different models of full circle urban forest stewardship that are used to reclaim urban forest products from those felled trees, and what strategies have been employed to support the reclamation of those urban forest products.

Speakers:

Matthew Staudenmaier – City of Eau Claire, WI

Matt is the Forestry Department Supervisor for the City of Eau Claire, WI. He leads a team of 5 fulltime ISA Certified Arborists and is charged with the maintenance of over 32,000 street trees. Emerald Ash Borer and diversification of the City’s tree population will continue to be the major challenges facing his Department, along with constricted budgets and labor force. Finding creative solutions while maintaining public trust and respect has been vital to his success, including overseeing implementation of the City’s urban wood use agreement with Wisconsin Urban Wood which allows WUW members to utilize removed trees from the City’s urban wood yard.

Dan Coy – City of Grand Rapids, MIKevin LaPointe – Kansas City, MO

Dan is the City Forester for the City of Grand Rapids, MI where he’s worked for the past two and a half years. Dan is leading the forestry team to improve the health and vigor of the city forest to achieve 40% canopy coverage over the city through a data driven approach that makes best use of technological advances to maximize safety and efficiency in forestry operations. Prior to working in Grand Rapids, Dan developed an urban forestry program with 3 components – urban wood utilization, community tree planting funded by log sales, and workshops & education in Elkhart, IN.

Kevin LaPointe – Kansas City, MO

Kevin is the City Forester for the City of Kansas City, MO, Parks & Recreation Department where he has worked for twenty-one years. He oversees more than 415,000 city trees which line the streets and boulevards in the 320-square mile incorporated city limits of Kansas City, MO and in the 12,000 acres of land comprising 222 developed and undeveloped parks. Kevin served on the Board of the Mid-West Chapter of the ISA from 2016-2018. He is a past recipient of the Missouri Arbor Award of Excellence, and an Environmental Achievement Award for Urban Forest Preservation for his work with EAB management.

August Hoppe – Hoppe Tree Service, WI

August is the Past President of the Wisconsin Arborist Association, Vice-Chair of the Wisconsin Urban Forestry Council, and incoming board member for the Tree Care Industry Association. He is the President of Hoppe Tree Service. Hoppe’s Urban Wood Lab Store utilizes urban wood from its tree service division. The Hoppe Urban Wood Lab Store mills lumber and natural edge slabs, selling directly to its tree care clients, and maintains a retail location where urban wood products are sold.

Webinar #2: Urban Lumber – How to Produce and Market It

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Urban wood is a legitimate source of lumber products. Lumber made from urban wood has unique and valuable attributes but urban logs can be difficult to process and saw. This webinar discussed examples of: log sources, sawing methods for producing urban lumber, lumber drying techniques and marketing strategies.

Speakers:

Margaret Studer-Miller – Spalted Banjo Consulting, MI

With a resume that ranges from championing the opening of an Urbanwood Marketplace within the City of Flint to chairing the City of Grand Rapids first ever Urban Wood Utilization Sub-Committee, Margaret views wood utilization as a vital management practice, obtainable to any community. As a forester and consultant, Margaret is dedicated to viewing resource management through both an environmental and anthropocentric lens. Margaret received her degree in Forest Science from Michigan State University, and earned special distinction for her senior thesis on China’s Sloping Land Conversion Program, which evaluated the implementations and impacts of reforesting sloping agricultural land in rural China. As a consultant, for Spalted Banjo Consulting, Margaret strives to assist all of her clients by managing their projects and resources in the most effective and sustainable manner.

Tim O’Neill – The Urban Lumber Company, Kansas City, MO

Tim has been involved with urban lumber since 2001 when he harvested a hackberry in his back yard that came down in an ice storm. Since then he has drug hundreds of logs out of yards, parks and construction sites. Tim started the Urban Lumber Company in 2005 which then partnered with a more-established mulch company, Missouri Organic, in 2013. Since then the Urban Lumber Company has processed over a million pounds of logs and sold over a hundred thousand board feet of urban lumber. Tim manages the Urban Lumber Company, is still making lumber, tables, shelves, deliveries and a mess in the shop daily. Tim and The Urban Lumber Company are proudest when their clients are “over the top” with the products produced from their urban lumber.

Paul Morrison – The Wood Cycle, Oregon, WI

Paul is owner of The Wood Cycle and a founding member of Wisconsin Urban Wood. Paul is an engineer by training, but has been milling and working wood since his youth. He formed the Wood Cycle in 2001 with an intentional focus on locally sourced Wisconsin hardwoods and always with an urban wood emphasis. As a business, The Wood Cycle employs 7 full time workers; produces its own urban lumber, supplying two Habitat for Humanity ReStore locations, and produces and sells live edge slabs and has a custom woodworking shop that produces furniture, cabinetry and a variety of other urban wood products. Paul also authored “Tree to Table; Emergence of the Urban Wood Movement.”

Webinar #3: Producing Urban Wood Products – What, How and Where

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Consumers from all over the country are jumping on the tree to table movement and are buying urban wood products in all shapes and sizes – from cutting boards to fine furniture to architectural pieces. This webinar will discuss a wide range of urban wood products and their demand from across the country.

Speakers:

Rick Siewert – Wood From the Hood, MN

Rick is President & second-generation owner of Siewert Cabinet & Fixture Manufacturing. Siewert Cabinet was established in 1965 and is a manufacturer of architectural woodwork, casework, and store fixtures that serves a national market of Fortune 500 companies. Rick began at Siewert in 1985 and today he leads his 40-employee organization in servicing the medical, hospitality, entertainment and office sectors. In 2008, Rick and his wife Cindy started Wood From The Hood, an urban lumber reclamation service. WFTH works with the local Park Board and tree service companies to reuse urban trees downed by disease or construction. With an on-site sawmill and kilns, WFTH is able to process trees for salable lumber or specialty products, which they manufacture. The majority of trees are from the seven-county metro area, so the finished product typically only travels a few miles from where the wood was reclaimed.

Paul Hickman – Urban Ashes, MIRocky Levy – Icon Modern, IL

Paul, the founder and CEO of Urban Ashes, is a designer, artist, social entrepreneur and leader in green design and criminal justice reform. Starting as a sign painter at the age of 15, Paul spent 16 years in the scenic arts and furniture world working with a diverse array of materials, many of which were unfortunately toxic and environmentally degrading. Searching for safer and more environmentally conscious alternatives, Paul landed at EcoTimber in Berkeley, CA. where he discovered ‘urban salvaged wood’ and other sustainably harvested woods. After returning to SE Michigan, Paul helped create The Urban Wood Project, a network of local tree services, mills and manufacturers who work with urban salvaged woods. In 2009, Paul founded Urban Ashes as a social enterprise merging his experiences in sustainable materials, local sourcing and criminal justice. Urban Ashes employs citizens with felonies and youth who have had contact with the justice system to produce intentionally simple and timeless designs crafted from salvaged woods.

Rocky Levy – Icon Modern, IL

As the co-owners of Icon Modern, Rocky and his business partner Aaron Tvrdy have been promoting the use of urban wood for over a decade. The early growth of the company was based mostly on the fact that the materials used were identified as ‘reclaimed urban wood’ for commercial clients like Starbucks and Whole Foods. Even today, all raw materials used by Icon Modern are sourced through groups like Wisconsin Urban Wood, along with direct relationships with sawyers, deconstruction teams and other sustainable material suppliers nationwide. A Chicago native, Rocky leads sales and marketing for the company and helps coordinate an in-house team of architects, designers and project managers. Icon Modern then collaborates with top corporate interiors firms across the country to create unique, branded and sustainable products for some of the best customers in the world. Recent projects include the headquarters for McDonalds, Caterpillar, Google, Twitter and many other recognizable end-users who share their passion about the message of urban wood.

Webinar #4: Starting a State Urban Wood Network

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The Urban Wood Network was founded in 2017 by individuals and entities who have been dedicated to building the urban wood industry since the early 2000s. We’ve learned that the only way to have a substantial impact on full circle urban forestry management is to work cooperatively from arborist to value-added manufacturer at a local level. A cohesive supply chain is necessary to get the highest value from urban trees. The UWN will share its collective experiences to assist businesses and others to join the urban wood movement. This webinar will give an overview of the industry, active networks, potential funding options, organizational structures, and guidance on how to start a state network.

Speakers:

Paul Morrison – The Wood Cycle, Oregon, WI

Dwayne Sperber – Wudeward Urban Forest Products

Wudeward Urban Forest Products Owner Dwayne Sperber has always been interested in architecture, wood, and the environment. He was introduced to urban wood nearly twenty years ago, and with this intersect of his three passions, Dwayne immediately became a major advocate for its use. He has worked tirelessly to build awareness and markets for the abundance of wood being removed due to insect, disease, or circumstance. Dwayne is a founding member of Wisconsin Urban Wood, a nonprofit focused on building networks of people and businesses that links material streams and availability of quality urban wood products and services across Wisconsin and beyond. He also serves as the Wisconsin State Lead for the Urban Wood Network and is an appointed member of the Wisconsin Urban Forestry Council.

Matthew Staudenmaier – City of Eau Claire, WI

Matt is the Forestry Department Supervisor for the City of Eau Claire, WI which is a member of Wisconsin Urban Wood. He leads a team of 5 fulltime ISA Certified Arborists and is charged with the maintenance of over 32,000 street trees. Emerald Ash Borer and diversification of the City’s tree population will continue to be the major challenges facing his Department, along with constricted budgets and labor force. Finding creative solutions while maintaining public trust and respect has been vital to his success, including overseeing implementation of the City’s urban wood use agreement with Wisconsin Urban Wood which allows its members to utilize removed trees from the City’s urban wood yard.