Shoutout to all the attendees, staff, speakers and sponsors of the TCI EXPO ’21 pre-conference Women in Tree Care Workshop! But did you know that this event was the culmination of years of female-focused initiatives here at TCIA?
Over the years, we have introduced entire magazine issues focused on women in the industry (one of which you are reading), hosted women-in-tree-care forums at TCI EXPO and Winter Management Conference, set up and run a Women in Tree Care Facebook Group, provided funding and sponsorships to workshops and event attendees and more.
That said, I’d like to use this opportunity to highlight a shift. Although TCIA will continue many of these programs (and likely will introduce more), some of the “legacy” programming you’ve come to know may fade into the background. Instead of exerting our efforts in a number of diverse public-facing forums (such as the Facebook group), TCIA is stepping back and doing what we do best – working more behind the scenes.
We’ll work to bring more women speakers into our programming (on topics not specific to women). We’ll build on the success of the 2021 pre-conference workshop and partner with other organizations exerting efforts in this space. And we’ll work on improving our content to include better diversity, equity and inclusion practices.
Long story short – although you may not see our efforts splashed across your social newsfeed or within a free forum at TCI EXPO, please know that TCIA continues to work (hard) toward gender equality in the tree care industry.
Amy Tetreault is TCIA senior vice president of corporate engagement.
