President's Perspective Spring 2025

By Sarah Maitland on Tuesday, April 1, 2025

WCISA 2024 Annual Conference is getting close and I couldn’t be more excited.  I look forward to greeting everyone.  I can’t wait to welcome all of you to Arizona. Let’s make this a conference to remember! WCISA’s program committee has developed an incredible lineup of speakers, hands-on workshops, and networking opportunities.

Each year, the WCISA conference serves as a powerful reminder of our shared commitment to excellence, innovation, and collaboration.

Each year, this conference reminds us why we do what we do. I know you’ll walk away feeling energized and inspired for the year ahead. This is an opportunity to reconnect with old friends and make new connections.   

In the Winter magazine, I encouraged everyone to branch out and make time to advance your career, to set goals to better yourself.  How is everyone doing on achieving your next goal?

If you remember in the last issue, I mentioned that I had set a goal and signed up for the TPAQ class (Tree and Plant Appraisal Qualification) that was after the ASCA conference in Tucson. I felt pretty green going in, but guess what, I passed!  I’m pretty sure I had an excellent instructor to thank, Lisa Smith. I not only learned the tree appraisal concept, but I learned something about trust. Lisa talked making the right decisions in appraisal about building trust in everything you do. And the key takeaway?  Don’t rub the eraser!

You never know when you interact with others what comes out of it. I have to say there is one important thing that stands out, trust. Trust is earned through honesty, consistency, transparency, and follow-through. It’s built over time but can be lost in an instant. Once it’s lost, it’s incredibly difficult to regain.

There are actually two values that make our industry strong: integrity and trust.

Integrity is more than just doing the right thing when others are watching, it’s about making the right choices even when no one will ever know. It means owning our mistakes, being transparent in our decisions, and holding ourselves accountable to the commitments we make. It’s not always the easiest path, but it’s always the right one.

As we go forward, I encourage each of you to reflect on how we can strengthen trust in our industry through our daily actions. How can we be more transparent in our communication? More accountable to our commitments? More dedicated to upholding the values that define us?

I am honored to serve as your WCISA president and look forward to working with all of you to uphold these principles and advance our shared mission. Together, with integrity as our guide, we can continue to build a stronger, more trusted industry for the future.

See you in Tucson,

Sarah