Meet the Tree Guy

Planting trees created money in New York.

by Bruce Schimmel

Drew Becher has a passion for trees, and he's great at sharing it. From a skybox overlooking the Flower Show — the signature event of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society (PHS), which he'll soon lead — Becher waxes rhapsodic on all things arboreal.

"I'm a tree guy," says Becher, who resembles a young John Malkovich. "Trees are the great organizer, and there are very few people who don't like them. In Chicago [where he was the Park District's chief of staff], we found that neighborhoods hold up a tree as a sign of prosperity, as a symbol of life. You know, a family tree."

Coincidentally, the week Becher and I spoke, William Penn's Great Elm — under which Penn made peace with American Indians — was being celebrated (penntreatymuseum.org).

That Philadelphians make a fuss over a tree doesn't surprise the new PHS president. A love of greening, he says, is in "the DNA of the region." And he should know, having lived part-time for a few years in Chestnut Hill with his partner of 14 years.

Like a catechism, Becher recites the virtues of trees: how they sweeten the air, soak up storm water, sequester carbon dioxide and shade hot streets. Trees also drive sustainable development, says Becher, citing a Wharton study that measures how trees increase the value of homes and businesses in urban neighborhoods.

Just 40, Becher comes to Philly with a history of greening. From Chicago, where he started in '96, he went to Washington, D.C., as a sustainability czar in '04. In '06, he came north to run Bette Midler's New York Restoration Project, which greens underserved communities. He left the Big Apple having helped plant some 310,000 trees in three years — a big dent on a pledge to plant a million in a decade.

At PHS, Becher replaces the legendary Jane Pepper, who since 1976 has transformed an elitist garden club into an urban powerhouse. Pepper diverted the profits of its Flower Show — an awesome exhibit with the unfortunate carbon footprint of Godzilla — into the organization's community gardening and tree-planting programs, Philadelphia Green and Tree Tenders.

Today, PHS' twin programs are pillars of Greenworks, the city's sustainability framework. The plan calls for increasing urban farming, and planting some 300,000 new trees by 2025. In New York, Becher averaged about 100,000 trees a year, but doing that in Philly will be a challenge.

Asked how many trees are now planted here each year, Becher punts. "I've got to find out on that." Fair enough, because no one knows. Many guess about 5,000 a year — which means we'd make our goal in about 60 years.

Still, Becher sounds undaunted. He has a reputation for staying close to volunteer community groups and spurring private property owners to plant. He insists that government, corporations and foundations must contribute more. Fueled by his enthusiasm, Becher says he loves to raise funds: "Corporations need these kind of programs for their green initiatives." Now, who could say no?

So while Mayor Nutter whines that "we have no money," Becher counters that planting trees created money in New York, improving health, building wealth and spurring new industries in nurseries, trucking and gardening. "The market we created is amazing," Becher crows. And that would make a tree believer of anyone.

(bruce@schimmel.com)