Meet Steve Heard — Skills + Trees

Early in the vision for this website and the dream of building a killer map of the Ainsworth Linear Arboretum, we tree-heads needed help. The data and knowledge we had built as neighbors was not lining up with the options and technical requirements to display a real interactive map.

We recruited a sympathetic talent in Steve Heard, who is an honorary member of the Tree Team. Check out his story below— you’ll see how lucky we are!

I got my first real introduction to Portland's tree community when I joined a group rallying to save a heritage Oak from development. What started as showing up to a few meetings quickly became an education in just how fragile the protections for heritage trees actually are in this city, especially when a bad actor is willing to just pay the fines and deal with the consequences. We brought attention to the issue through urban forestry channels, the city zoning committee, and all the grassroots citizen organizing you'd expect. My role ended up being on the technology side: setting up mailing lists, building websites, and eventually doing CAD work to visualize the development's impact on the tree and surrounding area.

Most of my other volunteering happens in person - avoid computers! So when Rebecca asked if I could help with the Ainsworth Linear Arboretum website I was skeptical, but said yes mostly out of that general volunteering spirit and she’s a good leader/motivator. But the more I learned about what a remarkable resource the ALA actually is, the more I fell in love with the project. There's something particularly satisfying about working with people who know everything about their subject (in this case trees, ecology, community stewardship) but need help with the thing you bring to the table. You really feel like an important piece of a larger puzzle that way. And building out the tree database and map visualization gave me a chance to actually write code again, which as an executive I don't get to do much anymore.

I'd encourage anyone with the time and resources to do even the bare minimum of volunteering in their community. It's especially important now, when there are larger forces at work that require us to be strong together. You can't always show up for every big fight the community is facing. By doing the more routine parts to keep the community itself intact, connected, and whole...that matters in building the foundation from which we stand when we are needed.

Thanks Steve! We (and the trees) are super grateful to you for dusting off the coding skills and bringing them to the table.