Wausau Assistant Director of Operations for Parks Receives Leadership Award

Thursday, February 24th, 2022 -- 10:00 AM

The Wisconsin Urban Forestry Council recently announced their annual awards honoring those dedicated to protecting, preserving and increasing the number of trees that line city streets, fill community parks and enhance neighborhoods throughout the state.

The Wisconsin Urban Forestry Council advises the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) on the best ways to preserve, protect, expand and improve Wisconsin's urban and community forest resources.

“The Urban Forestry Council Awards honor individuals, organizations and communities for their tireless work and commitment to trees and the plethora of benefits they provide. It’s such incredible work that people are doing in communities of all-sizes across the state to support healthy community forests,” said Linda Cadotte, Wisconsin Urban Forestry Council award committee chair.

“Every year the awards committee closely reviews many quality nominations. It's an honor to learn more about all the work happening around our state and to select the award recipients,” Cadotte said. “We continue to be ever-so-grateful for all the impressive work and commitment to forestry shown by these recipients.”

The Leadership Award was presented to Andy Sims, Assistant Director of Operations for Parks, Recreation and Forestry in the City of Wausau and Marathon County, for his leadership in community urban forest management.

Sims showed excellent leadership when he connected Wausau’s urban ash management program with Urban Evolutions of Appleton. The ash management plan involved treatment, removal and replacing ash trees in the boulevard, parks and other city-owned property, but Sims took it one step further.

This project involved partnerships with the DNR, which had a contact with Urban Evolutions of Appleton. Urban Evolutions uses new and reclaimed materials to design furniture, fences, flooring, doors, wall panels and more for retail, residential, hospitality, and commercial projects.

A contract was negotiated to enable Wausau’s ash logs to be removed from area parks and sold to Urban Evolutions. Proceeds from the log sales were used to plant new trees.

Sims is also developing a partnership with the Wausau School District to utilize the wood with the sawmill at the school to give the students an opportunity to learn about the sawing, drying and utilizing process.

Learn more about the Wisconsin Urban Forestry Council Annual Rewards, see past winners and nominate your community tree champion online here. The deadline for 2022 nominees was Oct. 31, 2021.

The deadline to nominate for next year's awards is Oct. 31, 2022. However, community tree champions can be nominated at any time.

Feel free to contact us with questions and/or comments.