It’s Kasey Krouse!

The City’s Urban Forester in the Public Service Department works with an amazing staff on maintaining and protecting trees across Knoxville. 

He also educates City employees and community partners on the benefits of trees and all tree-related issues (and there are many). 

Kasey works closely with the City’s Tree Board, the nonprofit Trees Knoxville, Keep Knoxville Beautiful and other key partners to plant trees in City parks and rights of way in neighborhoods. One of Kasey’s biggest accomplishments is leading the process to create the Urban Forest Master Plan. This plan was created in a thorough process with input from many local and regional experts and will guide our community's efforts to increase our urban tree canopy from 38 percent to 40 percent by 2040. 

Trees Knoxville has received a grant from the U.S. Forest Service via the Inflation Reduction Act to plant about 1,000 trees for the next five years, with many of those becoming public trees. 

Here’s another fun fact: Kasey worked as an electrician apprentice for five years, and now he enjoys doing home improvement projects in his spare time.

Next time you see Kasey, say thanks for the trees!