By Anne W. Semmes
Just how fortunate the town of Greenwich has been is realized from JoAnn Messina’s sharing her 17 years of serving as executive director of the Greenwich Tree Conservancy (GTC) from its 2007 beginning. Messina is retiring on January 1, 2024.
“We came together with a private-public partnership with the Town,” says Messina, “to plant trees because a lot of trees weren’t being planted, and part of that was because of storms…they had to spend all of their monies on clearing trees rather than planting trees. So, one of our milestones is that in our 17 years in partnership with the Town, we’ve planted over 6,000 trees on public lands in Greenwich. So, we’re very proud of that.”
Messina points again to that important private-public partnership. “It’s really been far more than I anticipated,” she notes. “We started with Bruce Spaman as the town Tree Warden, and he was instrumental in getting us started and working with us and figuring out how the partnership would work. And now, most recently working with Tree Warden Greg Kramer we work in tandem…. For instance, this past year we’ve gifted the town in excess of $60,000. If there’s a place that we need a tree, if we can do it, we do it. If the Town is there to remove a tree, they’ll plant the tree. So, it is seamless, and I think that’s why it works as well as it does. And we are able to reach our goal most years of 500 trees planted on public lands.”
Peter Malkin chairs the GTC board. He recalls Messina’s early skills at developing good working relationships. “She focused upon cooperation with the First Selectman, the Director of Parks and Recreation, the Department of Public Works and the RTM and the Board of Estimate and Taxation.” “To accomplish the program of the Greenwich Tree Conservancy,” Malkin confirms, “one must work well with several levels of Greenwich town government. And the Connecticut Department of Transportation which controls landscape proximate to the State highways and the MTA train tracks is another hard hill to climb. JoAnn has earned the respect of all of these Town players while excellently serving and supporting the Board of the Conservancy.”
Messina shares how she came on board 17 years ago. She was between jobs and a longtime friend of Cheryl Dunson. “Cheryl was the League of Women Voters president, and I followed her as president of the League, and she was one of the instrumental people with Peter Malkin, Mark Greenwald, and Mary Hull. And Cheryl came to me and said, ‘So, we have this [Greenwich Tree Conservancy] idea, and we need someone to start it up.’ And Peter asked if I knew someone who could do that,” Messina offered “to get things going for a year or two…”
Messina had arrived “administratively with no natural resources background. “My [late] husband Serle Mosoff,” she tells, “was the horticulturist.” [Mosoff, a lawyer, founded Urban Farmer importing seeds from around the world.] Their daughter Jonna,” Messina tells, is pursuing her doctorate at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Infectious Diseases, where Messina is soon headed for a visit.
So, Messina names her “biggest takeaway” in her 17 GTC years was of “how important tree canopy is and how much we’re losing it…In this current climate, which is changing so drastically, trees have become so important and so key…for flooding, for carbon sequestration, for just aesthetics, for tree canopy, for shading. We have focused a lot of our monies as well as energies on the western part of town because it’s become so clear that areas with small tree canopy have many other issues as a result… The last two years, we received a grant from the State to plant trees in Pemberwick, Chickahominy, and Byram because of their low tree canopy.”
Another related initiative she tells of is “putting trees in parking lots because it’s again, so important to have tree shade…we are understanding that we really need to shade what we use and where we are.”
Messina looks with pride at GTC’s growing educative initiatives for residents. “We try our best to have our tree walks and a lot of our authors and programs to be free.” Count in their annual fundraiser on Arbor Day, “which really does assist us in being able to bring tree walks and authors and such to the public.” Then there’s the Awesome Tree contest, “where we’ve had categories of trees and people nominate their trees.” Add the recent “scavenger oak tree hunt” to get families out and looking at their trees. “And we took a lot of the ideas from the Greenwich Historical Society recognizing historic houses, so we’re recognizing special treasured trees.”
Perhaps Messina is most proud of having brought to the Town of Greenwich an internationally accredited Arboretum. “We started that six years ago…Lisa Beebe is our arboretum curator. We are a level two ArbNet Accredited Arboretum. And we have labeled over 1,200 trees in our major parks, schools, libraries, roadsides, and that’ll be continuing.”
But she’ll step away before that planned tree greening along Route 1 from Stamford to Port Chester. “I’ve become very involved with Planning and Zoning and been on the Greenscape Task Force Committee,” she tells, “So, that’s something I really would like to see happen. We really need those 350 trees along Route 1 to make the entry and exit of Greenwich as it should be.”
Messina credits a host of individuals and organizations critical to the success of GTC. “We started with Peter Malkin and Cheryl Dunson and Mark Greenwald and the three of them are still very much on the board. Peter is extraordinary. He had the idea, he put some of his money behind it, but more importantly, he put his energies and his focus. And I get daily, weekly emails from him 17 years later, asking about a specific initiative. So, Peter has been instrumental in the success of the organization, and Cheryl Dunson right by his side.”
She cites GTC President Urling Searle as “amazing. She has brought in other types of initiatives like the scavenger hunt. She has been wonderful to work with. She’s on the board of the Greenwich Land Trust, she has a lot of outreach.” But Searle takes Messina’s praise and runs with it. “JoAnn’s depth of knowledge is respected well beyond Greenwich which can be seen in the regional groups she is a part of and the many requests for assistance she receives from other towns. This past Spring, she was asked to speak at Bedford 2030’s Power of Trees Conference that over 700 people attended.”
“I’m so honored,” Messina continues, “that we have been respected as an organization and I come into meetings whether it’s the Architectural Review Committee, or Greenwich Historical Society, or P&Z, and they look to us, or look to me as to what I’m thinking on a project. And I hope that continues.” She’s also seen sea changes in “the way the Tree Warden has been brought into projects like the Western Middle School remediation, the Central Middle School rebuilding at the outset, which is so key.” Before, “trees were an afterthought and trees were something that if you had some extra money, you threw them in and now they’re becoming part of the plan.”
Her other point of pride is having Greenwich become a Tree City USA. “That was something that I worked on with the former tree warden for several years before it happened. We are now in our sixth year of being a Tree City USA from the National Arbor Foundation. And that includes our Arbor Day plantings and ceremonies”.
Then there are those “little things.” “We started GTC,” she tells, “in my house, in my condo, and after 10 years we moved to an office. That was exciting.” Plus, “We have a major endowment to keep us going and that’s exciting.”
But Messina is not saying goodbye to GTC, tells Peter Malkin. “We are delighted that JoAnn will continue her association with the Greenwich Tree Conservancy as a member of its Advisory Board and as a mentor to her successor. JoAnn will be a tough act to follow.”
