Episode 168 - Marielle Drennan is the owner of Champion Tree, a full-service plant health care company.
Marielle Drennan is the owner of Champion Tree & Plant Health Care, a full-service plant health care company based out of King of Prussia, Pennsylvania and servicing the Main Line and surrounding areas. Marielle is an ISA Certified Arborist® and a Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture Certified Pesticide Technician. Prior to forming Champion Tree, Marielle worked on her husband's pruning crew for several years. She is a passionate collector of David Austin and antique roses, as well as a Pennsylvania Big Tree enthusiast. Marielle is a graduate of Washington and Lee University, in Lexington, Virginia where she majored in mass communications and double-minored in studio art and film and visual culture studies.
Episode 167 - Cliff Drouet is a Forester with the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSMRE).
Cliff Drouet is a Forester with the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement(OSMRE) which is a federal agency under the Department of the Interior. Cliff is working with the Appalachian Regional Reforestation Initiative(ARRI). The program restores old surface mine sites throughout Appalachia by planting native seedlings and establishing wildlife habitats. This reforestation program was started in 2004 by OSMRE and it has evolved into a highly successful program with good seedling survivability and growth. Having native trees growing on old mine sites greatly improves air, water, and soil quality while providing wildlife habitat and recreation benefits on the site. The ARRI program partners with private landowners, federal, and state agencies, non-profits, academia, and corporations to restore old mine sites back to native forests across Appalachia.
Cliff graduated from Louisiana Tech University in 1980 with a B.S. in Forest Management and he is a member of the Society of American Foresters. His professional background includes working as a Procurement Forester for 11 years in the industrial sector then he worked as a Consulting Forester for 25 years. In 2016 he began working as a Federal Forester in Kentucky.
Cliff is a proud military veteran who served for 36 years and completed four combat tours. He is a retired Army Lieutenant Colonel with experience as an Engineer and Military Intelligence Officer.
Episode 134 - Andrew Conboy created Colonial Canopy Trees a non-profit organization and works with Karen Kabnick in their mission for greening.
Andrew Conboy
Andrew Conboy enjoys sharing his passion for trees and their many benefits with anyone who will listen. He is an ISA-certified arborist who most recently worked on the Urban Forestry team at the Morris Arboretum in Philadelphia.
In 2020, he created Colonial Canopy Trees, a non-profit organization that leads ecological restoration efforts in the greater Philadelphia area. In his free time, Andrew creates videos about environmental topics and shares them on social media.
Through his work, he hopes to inspire people and change the way we view and value our natural lands, native plants, and wildlife. He studied Environmental Science at Chestnut Hill College and Evolutionary Biology in graduate school at Lehigh University.
Karen Kabnick
After retiring in 2020, Karen Kabnick wanted to do everything she could to help mitigate the damages of climate change and habitat destruction. Karen met Andrew at a volunteer event and was thrilled to learn he, too, loved to rescue and nurture seedlings of native trees. They shared that hobby. She learned all about the countless benefits of trees and how to plant them from Andrew, friends, courses and reading, and wanted to use her new-found knowledge to help Andrew with Colonial Canopy Trees to restore our local canopy and re-establish wildlife habitats.