09/24/2026
Huge thanks to Tim Walsh for keeping Alex Shigo’s legacy alive! 🌳✨
This message is from Tim Walsh, shared with his permission.
Twenty years ago today, September 22, 2006, I saw Dr. Alex Shigo for the last time.
We had held a student event in New Hampshire. Like so many days with Alex, the formal event was only part of the education. A group of us ended up back at his lake house, talking, asking questions, walking among the trees and, of course, touching them.
That was Alex.
He didn't simply want to give you an answer. He wanted you to look. To think. To touch. To question what you thought you knew. And then to go back to the tree and see what it could teach you.
None of us knew that day would become such a significant marker in our lives. Two weeks later, Alex was gone.
Shortly after his death, I wrote something that I still believe today:
“If all that you learned from Alex was about trees, then you missed most of what he was about.”
Alex fundamentally changed arboriculture because he changed the way we understood trees. But his influence went far beyond tree biology.
He taught curiosity. He taught us to challenge assumptions. He showed that there was strength in saying I don’t know and in changing your mind when the evidence showed you were wrong. He was incredibly generous with his knowledge and believed that ideas became more valuable when they were shared. He believed in students and in the responsibility we have to keep learning and then pass what we learn on to others.
Those lessons have stayed with me through every part of my career — as an arborist, researcher, teacher, safety professional and leader.
Even now, I find myself coming back to the questions Alex taught so many of us to ask:
What are we actually seeing?
What are we missing?
What do we really know?
And are we curious enough to keep looking?
Twenty years later, what I remember most about that day at the lake isn't a particular lesson about tree biology. It is Alex himself — his curiosity, his enthusiasm, the conversations, the questions, and a group of people standing around touching trees.
In 2006, I thanked Alex for making me “a better person first and a better arborist, second.”
I still hope I am living up to that.
Some teachers never really leave us. Their questions keep showing up. Their lessons get passed to another generation. And every once in a while, you find yourself standing next to a tree, putting your hand on the bark, and thinking about them.
Miss you, Alex. Still learning. Still sharing. Still touching trees.
