Meet Tara Tran: OTR’s Truckee River Urban Tree Workforce Program Technical Support Lead
“How do we look at these two different communities, environmentalists and unhoused individuals, that feel like they should be opposing and have them work together to find a solution that’s better for everyone? “ asks Tara Tran, Truckee River Urban Tree Workforce Forest Manager and Educator at OTR and Community Programs Educator at the Truckee Meadows Park Foundation. “The Truckee River Urban Trees Workforce Development Program takes a practical approach to a really complicated issue, and I’m proud to be a part of it.”
At One Truckee River, Tran is providing technical support to our Workforce Program as they reestablish native trees, remove invasive species, and protect mature native trees from beaver damage along the 2-mile stretch of the Truckee River Corridor between Lake Street to Galletti Way. The Workforce crew is comprised of individuals in recovery at Washoe County’s Crossroads Program, many who have been homeless in the past. The Program provides meaningful work experiences by conducting restorative vegetation management along the Truckee River while providing career guidance to those with barriers to employment.
What makes Tara’s knowledge and experiences just the right fit for this Program? Why is this crew the perfect fit for protecting the Truckee River? And, how is the Program preparing them for stable careers and lasting sobriety?
Keep reading for Tran’s perspective, in this month’s blog!
Getting to Know Tara Tran
Tara Tran (they/them) was born in Las Vegas and moved to Reno to study at UNR. They majored in Biological Anthropology, and was especially interested in how our physical bodies keep records of our lives. After graduating, Tran worked as an archaeologist for 2+ years in cultural resource management, for a private consulting firm. They worked in remote areas of Nevada, California, and Arizona – gaining a new appreciation for nature, plants, and ecology along the way. However, their beliefs were often pitted against their work: Tara cared deeply about the human artifacts they uncovered and disliked speaking as a representative of mining companies and other extractive industries.
From here, Tran explains, “I took a step back and asked, ‘how do I address the preservation and conservation of the things I care about?’” They looked at parks as an intersection of human and environmental needs, providing essential wildlife habitat, recreational opportunities, and public space for us all to simply sit and be.
In their spare time, Tara was already engaging in advocacy and community work. They organized informal groups of friends to cook and distribute food, before beginning preparing meals with Family Soup Mutual Aid in 2022. They also began attending and providing public comment at community meetings.
Working in Northern Nevada Parks
Enamored with the idea of cultivating stewardship, Tran began working with the Truckee Meadows Parks Foundation as a Community Programs Educator through the AmeriCorps program. As an Interpretive Guide, they lead hikes in and just outside of Reno, teaching people about history, plants, animals, and indigenous stewardship of the land. They also ran the Discover Your Parks program series, featuring events in local parks ranging from bug walks and bird walks to water coloring, poetry, and yoga in natural settings. Their hope? In teaching about the parks, they’d inspire connection to our natural world and the desire to protect it.
Similarly, working for the City of Reno as a Horticultural Attendant under the city’s urban forestry program, Tara watered and monitored newly planted trees to encourage their survival and growth. They came to appreciate the native plants along the Truckee River, as well as the intersecting needs of people and plants in the river’s urban corridor. Observing the unhoused individuals along the river, Tran wondered. “These people spend more time along the river than anyone else because they have nowhere else to go. Why can’t they be a part of the solution?”
Connecting with One Truckee River
At One Truckee River, Tara started out supporting the Truckee River Community Advisory Team, a group that conducted community-led research to increase their understanding of the community’s perceptions and experiences along the river – with the hope of using these findings to guide improvements to the river corridor east of downtown Reno. Their work included surveying community members spending time along the Truckee River from Broadhead Park to John Champion Park. The group included a wide range of community members: local business owners, homeowners, tribal members, and outreach staff working with unhoused individuals along the river. For the first time, Tran was engaging with a diversity of people utilizing the river – and felt like they were building upon everyone’s experiences to make the river healthier.
From there, Tara became the Technical Support staff leading the TRUT Workforce Program. They worked in partnership with Reno Initiative For Shelter and Equality to house the Program under Washoe County Crossroads Program, providing recovery clients on-the-job experience, education, and certification opportunities to residents with barriers to employment.
Together, the TRUT Workforce crew has collected hundreds of native tree seeds and cuttings, propagated them, and replanted them along the Truckee River Corridor. They’ve wrapped mature native trees to protect them from beaver damage and removed invasives like Tree of Heaven, which have a tendency to crowd out desirable species. For trees like Siberian Elm that can be both environmentally problematic and pleasant givers of shade, the crew considers each tree separately. They’re thinning out some patches to allow native grasses and shrubs to thrive while allowing some Siberian Elms to stay where they’re providing benefits like shade or soil stabilization.
In Fisherman’s and John Champion Parks, the Workforce crew is working with the City of Reno to replace and improve irrigation systems that are no longer effective. So far, the crew’s efforts include: removing 475 invasive trees, planting 203 native trees, and protecting 306 desirable species from beaver damage.
Already, we’re seeing significant benefits from this work! It’s both protecting the river and structures (including buildings and paved pathways) by supporting the stabilization of the riverbank soils and managing the tree canopy to decrease temperatures on land for human enjoyment and in the water for fish health.
What’s it Like Working with The Crew?
Working with a population most of us don’t often interact with, Tara frequently observes how this group seems more compassionate than typical teams, and better at communication with each other. They look out not only for their fellow crew members, but are attentive to others they encounter along the river during their workdays. Tara sees them supporting one another and working together to find purpose in the world and establish themselves. They’re always checking in with one another, as well as others they encounter, to see if support is needed. Tara is working to increase the group’s understanding of the natural world – recognizing that by increasing knowledge of stewardship, the crew’s caring nature will extend to our natural environment. Tran sees the crew not only making sure the people they encounter are okay, but that the trees are growing strong and have everything they need to thrive as well.
Similarly, Tara finds the Workforce crew communicates clearly, asking clarifying questions and addressing needs in a manner that helps them work efficiently and effectively together. They’re excited to be working, quick to learn, and eager to do the best job possible – all attributes that would make them excellent additions to any landscaping, urban forestry, horticulture, or restoration team.
The Workforce Program is not only helping people transition back into society through part time work but is providing them with desirable job skills and certification opportunities in partnership with agencies, such as water efficient landscaping through the UNR Extension, pesticide application through the NV Agriculture Department, and chainsaw operation through the City of Reno. The goal is to help the crew develop lasting careers that pay well and give them purpose – all while providing much needed restorative vegetation management along the Truckee River’s urban corridor.
For Tara Tran, it’s exactly the impact they hoped to have as they shifted their career from archaeology, to more traditional environmental education and parks management, to working with One Truckee River.