Tiffany Mrotek, Director of Career Pathways at American Forests, will present on the workforce challenges the tree care industry is facing and how we can fill the gap with a skilled diverse workforce through pre-apprenticeship training. This approach has the dual benefit of meeting workforce needs while also providing people underrepresented in the industry opportunities to succeed and thrive in a meaningful career. Tiffany will also introduce American Forests’ new pre-apprenticeship curriculum, an industry-informed curriculum that sets the national job-training program standard for inclusive workforce development in arboriculture. Kim Yuan-Farrell, Executive Director of Denver-based nonprofit The Park People, will discuss her organization’s development of an urban forestry pre-apprenticeship program to support workforce equity and build community capacity to plant and care for Denver’s forest, including key learning from their in-depth planning process.