Sarah Lilley
Regional Supervisor
The best days at work for Sarah Lilley are the ones where she gets to be in the field with clients and coworkers. With limited knowledge of utility forestry prior to joining CN Utility Consulting, now our forestry and utility division, it was Sarah’s supervisor and coworkers that trained her as a consulting utility forester (CUF), preparing her for her role then and now. At the heart of her work, she said she “loves that I’m helping communities better understand and manage their trees, making the world a little greener and healthier for all of us.”
Someone who always wanted to work in science, Sarah became more focused as an undergraduate student at Gettysburg College, where she added an environmental science degree alongside her biology degree. After undergrad, she also studied environmental engineering in New Hampshire, worked in environmental toxicology in San Diego, and came to work in forestry in Los Angeles.
With some training and a proper welcome, Sarah hit the ground running as she started her career as a CUF. For Sarah, it originally meant that she would be able to call the outdoors her office and use geographic information system (GIS), which she had extensive experience using during her undergraduate capstone project. But simply working outdoors and using a GIS turned out to be much more – along with a long-term career for Sarah.
“Something that has really stuck with me is that I was trusted to do good work from the very start. I was given a vehicle and equipment on day one, and set off into the world to represent our company.”
Since joining the company in February 2016, she has held positions from CUF to contract coordinator to regional coordinator, then to her current role with the research and development team.
Sarah shares, “I love the variety of tasks that come in our urban forestry projects. Writing proposals and management plans, communicating with clients, data quality control, and using GIS.”
No stranger to a new city, new state, or new region for that matter, Sarah made the move from California to Connecticut to be closer to family. With the trees and forests being incredibly different cross-country, Sarah enrolled in the Connecticut Master Woodland Manager course, which was a year-long virtual and in-person class on forestry principles, allowing her to master a new region of vegetation.
“I’m excited about all the collaborations and opportunities we have. I’m trying to raise my daughter to know trees and understand their importance.”