Across the world, ISA members dedicated their efforts to promoting the professional practice of arboriculture and fostering greater awareness of the benefits of trees. The ISA Member Spotlight allows ISA to share our members' stories and recognize their accomplishments and contributions to the arboriculture industry. This month, ISA is highlighting Cindy Devlin Musick.
Musick is currently the Senior Director of Vegetation Management Services at Rappahannock Electric Cooperative and has been working in utility arboriculture for nearly 35 years. Musick started in forestry school, originally wanting to go into timber management.
After graduating, Musick went to Montana and worked on a trail crew while applying for jobs all over the country. She was later hired by the electric utility company, Pepco, and has stayed in the utilities sector since.
Musick said in the early 90s, most professional organizations were focused on traditional forestry. ISA was unique with its focus on tree health, best practices, and its credentialing program. Musick decided to pursue becoming an ISA Certified Arborist® and ISA Certified Arborist Utility Specialist® to increase her knowledge base.
Additionally, Musick has remained an ISA member for over 20 years because of the networking opportunities it has provided. Musick said both the ISA credentials and membership have opened doors for her, including benefitting professionally from the work of the Utility Arborist Research Fund (UARF), which is a partnership between Tree Research and Education Endowment Fund (TREE Fund) and Utility Arborist Association (UAA).
“I have learned so much from research that’s been done by others,” Musick said. “I think it’s the combination of knowledge sharing, networking, professionalism, and events.”
Currently, Musick is going through a Ph.D. program and has been awarded a grant through UARF. Musick has been studying tree-caused power outages on a macro-level alongside Gregory Dahle, Ph.D., at West Virginia University.
“We were awarded the grant in 2020 to research tree failures and why they fail,” Musick said. “For me, it’s the perfect nexus of practical knowledge, the science behind it, and being able to hopefully make management decisions based on that nexus.”
Through more rounds of grant applications, another Ph.D. student will soon continue this research on a national scale with Dahle. Musick said she is proud to see this research continue and, hopefully, provide meaningful results for those in utility arboriculture. Last year, Musick also had the opportunity to present her research through a TREE Fund webinar, which can be found here.
Musick said she would like to do more in the future to make scholarly research accessible to the masses, and she hopes this will become a growing trend as the industry continues to evolve. Musick said she appreciates organizations like ISA, UAA, and the TREE Fund, among others, that continue to provide educational resources and serve as channels of communication.
“There are thousands of folks that do what you do, and most of us are too busy in our day-to-day lives of just getting the job done to actually connect,” Musick said. “On a personal level, ISA makes it very simple and says, ‘Come to this meeting.’ (ISA members) are salt of the Earth people that are really doing this work because they love trees. There aren’t a lot of awful people who love trees. It’s a small world, and people who get to know each other in arboriculture tend to stay in touch.”