Staff & Partners — Trees for Missoula

Staff

As Trees for Missoula becomes a program of Climate Smart Missoula, we’d like to extend our deepest gratitude to Trees for Missoula’s founder and former executive director, Karen Sippy. Karen created Trees for Missoula in 2011 and has been a strong, successful advocate for urban trees ever since. See her bio below! Thank you, Karen, for your many years of service to the Missoula urban forestry community!

SUSAN TEITELMAN

CLIMATE RESILIENCE SPECIALIST, CLIMATE SMART MISSOULA

As the Climate Resilience Specialist at Climate Smart Missoula, Susan focuses on helping the Missoula community adapt to the impacts of climate change. Her work centers around wildfire smoke and health education and outreach; extreme heat preparedness planning; and now urban forestry! Susan is excited to take the lead on the Trees for Missoula program by addressing urban forestry efforts through the lens of climate change. She believes that building and maintaining a healthy urban forest is one of the best ways communities can be resilient to heat, extreme weather events, and other climate impacts.

Susan graduated with her MS in Environmental Studies in 2022 from the University of Montana, where she focused on ethnobotany, Traditional Ecological Knowledge, and environmental justice. She has lived in Missoula since 2013 and since then has worked as an herbalist and plant educator, spending a lot of time teaching and learning about Western Montana’s flora. Susan continues to learn about the many aspects of Missoula’s history, cultures, politics, and the natural environment — and how they are all interconnected. As she takes on the work of urban forestry, Susan is eager to continue working with plants in a slightly different capacity!

KAREN SIPPY

VOLUNTEER EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR EMERITUS, TREES FOR MISSOULA

Karen Sippy is a founding member and volunteer executive director of Trees for Missoula (TFM). Karen arrived in Missoula in 2003, immediately falling in love with the city and its trees. Growing up in the Midwest, Karen could often be found high up in her favorite place, the catalpa tree in the front yard of her childhood home. She was born a tree hugger, so after working as a middle school teacher, public speaker and sales manager, it was time to retire to a life of giving back to her community and to the trees.

Since 2011, she has worked closely with Missoula’s Urban Forestry Division, in an effort to identify how the community and TFM volunteers could best promote a healthy urban forest. She served on the committee that wrote the 2015 Missoula Urban Forest Master Management Plan, and looks forward to continuing her work supporting Missoula’s urban forest.

Karen is also a founding board member and treasurer for Grant Creek Trails Association, a board member for Friends of Missoula Parks and a member of the State of Montana Arboretum Committee.

THANK YOU TO OUR FORMER FISCAL SPONSOR, FRIENDS OF MISSOULA PARKS (501C3)

Trees for Missoula is one of many programs and projects for which Friends of Missoula Parks (FMP) provided fiscal sponsorship from 2011 through 2023. Through this partnership, Trees for Missoula was able to apply for grants and receive tax-deductible donations. Friends of Missoula Parks, Inc. was formed in 2002 by Missoula residents to provide a non-governmental entity to contribute to Missoula’s park and recreation amenities.

Partners

Advocating for the urban forest cannot take place in a vacuum. It requires the involvement, commitment and cooperation from a variety of stakeholders, those who have an interest in the overall health of our community.