REI, ODOT & Sam Adams Win Leadership Awards
Congratulations to this year’s Friends of Trees Leadership Award Winners: REI, ODOT Region 1, and former Portland Mayor Sam Adams! The awards were presented at Friends of Trees’ annual leadership luncheon at the Multnomah Athletic Club on May 16. (Photos above were taken at the luncheon by Lucia DeLisa)
The largest consumer co-op in the nation, REI received the 2013 Business Leadership Award. Founded in the Northwest and committed to helping the communities where its stores are located, REI Portland and REI Eugene have generously supported Friends of Trees for 15 years now—in both the Portland and Eugene areas. To date, REI has donated more than $60,000 for our planting projects. Recently REI pledged another $20,000 in support of Friends of Trees planting projects this fall and winter.
“Friends of Trees has been one of our strongest partners,” said Stephen Hatfield, Outdoor Marketing & Outreach Marketing Manager for REI Portland. Its strengths, he noted, are an unwavering devotion to environmental stewardship and a critical role in restoration work throughout the region.
ODOT Region 1 received Friends of Trees’ 2013 Community Partner Leadership Award for its innovative four-year project with Friends of Trees, Metro, and more than a dozen other businesses, foundations and agencies to plant 5,000 trees along 16.5 miles of the I-205 Multi-Use Path. The project called for a new approach to funding tree plantings in which trees are considered capital assets. However, unlike other capital assets such as light posts and bridges, trees increase in value over time.
“The best part of the project is that as the trees grow and more and more people use the path, they’re going to reap all the benefits of the trees we planted,” said ODOT Region 1 Manager Jason Tell.
Friends of Trees’ 2013 Individual Leadership Award went to former Mayor Sam Adams, currently Executive Director of the City Club of Portland. Adams received the award for his leadership in launching the Grey to Green Initiative, a years-long project to plant green infrastructure to manage stormwater runoff in Portland so less grey infrastructure is required.
Lisa Libby, the city’s Planning & Sustainability Director during Adams’ terms as city commissioner and mayor, accepted the award on behalf of Adams, who was unable to attend the luncheon because of a close friend’s death. Libby said that from the time she started working for Adams, he talked about the need to reduce carbon emissions and manage stormwater sustainably.
“The investment part is what makes this such a notable recognition,” said Libby. “Sam’s willingness to make that investment … and to dedicate public resources to it.”
The May 16 event was sponsored by The Oregonian and Rigert Shade Trees, with KGW News Anchor Tracy Barry as emcee.
Special guest speaker Mayor Charlie Hales concluded the program. A former board member of Friends of Trees, Hales and his family have been planting with Friends of Trees for 20 years now.
When he greets volunteers at weekend plantings, Hales said, “I always admonish them that planting with Friends of Trees might cause three side effects.”
The first is that after the community planting, they’ll start talking with their neighbors. Second, they might start speaking strangely, using Latin names when admiring the trees they’ve planted. Finally, Hales warns the volunteers, “You’ll start developing this belief that you can make a difference.”