Photo Credit: Courtesy of Zumbrota City Staff
Editor’s Note: This column, “LBWA” (Leadership By Wandering Around), is based on the premise that, in order to find out what’s going on in the field, a parks and rec leader has to leave his or her desk and “wander around” the area of operations, talk to people, ask questions, and kick around ideas with the individuals in the thick of delivering services to the public. So the author will bring up issues and ask the leaders among the readership to share their knowledge and experiences.
About 4 years ago, Neil Jensen, the City Administrator of Zumbrota, Minn., located an hour southeast of Minneapolis, noticed that a small stand of ash trees had died in the spring. “That got me thinking there might be a problem,” recalls Jensen, a self-avowed “tree nut.”
A certified tree inspector in a previous life, he kept current on issues involving trees and knew about the dreaded Emerald Ash Borer (EAB), a small, iridescent-green beetle native to Asia that was first found in the U.S. in Detroit in 2002. Since then, the insect has migrated to other northern states, being discovered in Minnesota’s Twin Cities area in 2009.