Guest Column: Trees are Cool
Mike Marshall speaking at the UF/IFAS Dinner of Distinction. | Image Courtesy UF/IFAS
Mike Marshall is part Gator, part green industry stalwart and part tree guy. That’s how one leader can do so much to tie together UF/IFAS, FNGLA and the Florida chapter of the International Society of Arboriculture.
We all want a greener Florida with more trees, but it takes a connecter to help us pursue those goals in a coordinated way. Marshall is one of those connecters.
So when we honored Florida ISA with the UF/IFAS Industry Partner Award at our annual Dinner of Distinction in October, Marshall accepted on ISA’s behalf. It was fitting that he was the lead messenger in a video shown to a full ballroom audience and that he was on stage with Florida ISA Executive Director Lori Ballard.
“Trees are cool” were the very first words out of Marshall’s mouth in the video. It’s been his message for decades – since he was an undergraduate at the UF/IFAS College of Agricultural and Life Sciences.
While the award went to the chapter, Marshall has kept the trees-are-cool message at the intersection of UF/IFAS and the green industry in multiple ways: as past FNGLA president; as past president and current arboriculture grants committee chair of the Florida ISA; as a double Gator with degrees from the UF/IFAS Department of Environmental Horticulture; a Wedgworth Leadership Institute alumnus; and a parent of three current UF students and one graduate.
Marshall believes tree science is pretty cool, too. He has dedicated untold unpaid hours to expanding what we know about trees. The ISA invests a lot in the science that underpins Florida arboriculture. Marshall annually reviews research proposals.
And when arboriculture professor Ed Gilman retired from UF/IFAS, Marshall served on a search committee to find a successor. When they found Ryan Klein, Marshall established a close connection with him to understand his work. Marshall has since participated in awarding grants to fund key projects by Klein.
The Florida ISA endowment supports important UF/IFAS tree science every year. It also encourages UF/IFAS to work more closely with arborists statewide.
Other ISA funding is used by UF/IFAS Extension to help ISA educate arborists and consumers. Other grants fund UF/IFAS work on educational materials. Yet others support research in search of solutions to industry challenges.
For example, Klein’s work on the use of biochar and compost as possible aids to establishing and growing trees in sandy soils is an ISA project. So is the update of the huge database of Florida trees and shrubs known as Florida Trees.
Florida ISA funding is one of the larger sources of grant support for arboriculture aside from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture and the National Science Foundation.
Now Marshall, Florida ISA, and FNGLA are working with Klein on reviving the Great Southern Tree conference in 2025 after a hiatus of more than a decade.
It's not the first time we’ve honored the green industry at our Dinner of Distinction. In 2019, we bestowed the Industry Partner Award on FNGLA, and FNGLA retired CEO Ben Bolusky attended to accept.
It is our fortune that Marshall, Gilman, Ballard, and the rest of the board of the Florida ISA not only think trees are cool but that tree science is cool. My thanks and congratulations to Marshall and to the Florida chapter for their decades of support. Florida is cooler for it.
J. Scott Angle is the University of Florida’s Senior Vice President for Agriculture and Natural Resources and leader of the UF Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS).
