Dave is the charismatic former Senior Arborist at Apple, who selected, grew, and planted the 9,000 trees within the 175-acre Apple Park headquarters in Cupertino, bringing to life Steve Job’s vision of a tree rich park resembling the Stanford hills, where employees readily enjoy the benefits of nature.

Dave’s passion for trees, oaks in particular, developed on the Stanford campus, planting native trees as a member of the Magic community, while earning a degree in mechanical engineering. From there, Dave became Canopy’s first program director, orchestrating the planting of 500 trees in Palo Alto neighborhoods.  Later, while serving on the Canopy board of directors, Dave designed Canopy’s East Palo Alto Tree Initiative, the award winning planting of 1,000 drought tolerant trees along the Bayshore freeway. With some of the highest survival rates ever recorded by science, these trees provide invaluable benefits to the community as they scrub the air from nearby exhaust pollutants.

Dave’s wisdom and insight, gained from 30 years of observing, growing, planting, researching, and stewarding nearly 100,000 trees, is unparalleled and highly sought after. His mission in life is to create the best possible urban forests in California, capable of adapting to the changing conditions brought by climate change.  He’s continuing his research and experiment with species native from other areas, to select and grow those that he believes will survive and thrive in California. He’s playing an instrumental role in influencing the tree nursery industry not only to grow these species, but also to adopt innovative growing techniques.

Publications:

Stewardship Matters: Case studies in establishment success of urban trees – Urban Forestry & Urban Greening, November 2015
Watching Trees, Good News for California Gardeners, Pacific Horticulture, Fall 2015
New Oak Species for California – International Society of Arboriculture Western Arborist Journal, Winter 2008
Rootball Treatment for Optimal Tree Growth, Pacific Horticulture, January 2008

If you can’t join us June 2, but still want to create healthy, nature-filled neighborhoods, we hope you’ll consider a special gift of support.

Your contribution of any amount is deeply appreciated, and will be put to work right away to plant trees, advocate for the urban forest, engage youth as environmental leaders, and transform local communities with the life-giving benefits of trees.