Leif Fixen CLASS OF '05

Urban Forester for Boston Parks and Recreation

Current home: Boston, Massachusetts

Major: Horticulture with emphasis on forestry

Minors: Agronomy, Economics

Most Midwesterners don’t think of greenery when they think of Boston—but Leif Fixen does. As its urban forester, he’s responsible for the City of Boston’s estimated 500,000 trees.

To put it mildly: It keeps him busy. He schedules what to plant, and where, and when. He manages disease and pest prevention and treatment (current hot topic: how to keep the Asian longhorn beetle from invading from neighboring Worcester). And he’s launched a Citizen Forester Program that trains members of the public to prune and care for the city’s shade trees.

But caring for trees is only part of the story. Thank goodness for Leif’s economics minor, because last year he was responsible for $1 million in contracts – plus a healthy dose of marketing. “In the current economy, I spend a lot of time ‘selling the trees.’ I need to show government officials and the public why trees are important to the city. I need to tie scientific benefits to economic realities,” he says. “That’s why my SDSU education has made all the difference. I know how to do the work, but I also know the biology and the economics behind the work.”