Kerry Gray
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EmailKerry Gray is a grant specialist with the Michigan DNR Urban & Community Forestry (UCF) program. She provides grants to communities and organizations in disadvantaged areas of Michigan to care for, grow and manage their urban and community forests.
I have always loved the outdoors and growing plants. From a young age, 4 or 5, I remember going with my Aunt to the garden center to pick out plants and then helping her plant and care for them. In high school, I worked at a nursery and garden center which furthered my interest and passion in plants.
I didn’t know about a career in Forestry until I arrived at MSU. I was in a different program my freshman and sophomore years and realized that it wasn’t quite the right fit for me. I saw an MSU Forestry poster hanging outside one of the classrooms at Holmes Hall and contacted an advisor in the program and I switched my major to Forestry.
What I loved and found interesting about forestry and led me to this career was there are so many different paths you can take in the career from traditional forest management and forest health to urban forestry and everything in between. I knew pretty early on when I joined the program that my interest was in the field of urban forestry. It blended both my interests in people, improving our communities and forestry all together.
After 23 years of work in the public and private sectors, including the City of Ann Arbor and Davey Resource Group, I am thrilled to provide grant support for community tree planting and care. During a typical week I have both office and field work. Activities include meetings with colleagues and partners about projects, providing grant assistance to grantees and potential applications, grant administration, exhibiting/presenting at events, providing urban and community forestry assistance to communities both virtually and during field visits. The fun part of my job is I can mix my week with both office and field work which adds a lot of variety and interest.
The best part of my job is awarding grants to cool and interesting projects around Michigan that are helping to increase tree canopy cover and improving the management and care of community trees in our disadvantaged communities. I am helping communities that have been historically under resourced begin to address issues of low tree canopy cover by providing financial assistance to plant and care for trees and setting a course towards proactive tree management and care.
My Advice
Talk to MSU Forestry Alumni and people in the field of forestry. There are so many career paths that you can take in forestry. While I love forests and trees, my interest was not in traditional forestry. When I talked to my forestry advisor and other people I learned there were so many paths you could take and that’s how I landed in urban forestry because it was perfect blend of things I loved – trees, helping people and improving the environment.
