Mick Hammock

Tag: futurism

  • San Diego’s Space for Innovation: How Aquillius is Building a Resilient Startup Ecosystem

    San Diego’s Space for Innovation: How Aquillius is Building a Resilient Startup Ecosystem

    Consistently ranked as one of the top biotech cities in the United States, San Diego is home to giants like Illumina, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Genentech, Bristol Meyers Squibb, and seemingly countless more – many of which are fed from a rich pipeline of science graduates from UCSD, SDSU, and USD.  

    However, not everyone interested in biotech wants to go to the giants. Some think that they’re the ones who can create the next big thing.  

    And that’s where Aquillius comes in.  

    A biotech and MedTech incubator, Aquillius is a biotech startup founder’s dream – they provide a space for extremely early-stage startups to develop and grow. With 25,000 feet of lab and office space, they offer a physical place (and access to a vibrant community!) for lab-heavy startups to research, prototype, network, raise capital, and more.  

    Their mission is to accelerate the integration of life sciences and engineering to create innovative solutions that can improve human health, by focusing on streamlining product development and early R&D in the biotech and MedTech industries.  

    Or, to say it another way, they want to make the next generation of San Diego’s innovative science companies more successful – by making them more resilient. 

    In this interview, you’ll learn about the importance of providing space to fledgling companies – whether it’s physical, educational, or mental. You’ll learn about just how Aquillius matches resources with the startups they work with. And, most importantly, you’ll learn what they’re doing to set the next generation of scientists and entrepreneurs up for success.  

    If you’d like to learn more about Aquillius, you can check them out on their website. (I’d also recommend you take the tour!) 

    I’d like to give a big thank you and a shout out to Leah Villegas and Austin Strain for their time and help on this interview. 

    Aquillius provides office and lab space for burgeoning BioTech companies.

    I’m chiefly interested in the concept of resilience – personal, communal, and societal. What does the concept of resilience mean to you and Aquillius? 

    Leah Villegas: I believe resilience means persisting, unwavering in your commitment to your business, regardless of the challenges encountered. In our environment, we engage with many early-stage startups and companies just setting out to make their mark in their respective markets. It’s a demanding journey. As entrepreneurs ourselves, my team and I face these challenges too. I see resilience as the key. There will be numerous obstacles and setbacks along the way, but pushing through and surviving these challenges is what truly cultivates resilience and shapes the character of every founder. 

    Startups, especially the early-stage startups that you focus on, are notoriously prone to risk. How have you worked to build resilience within Aquillius to continue to identify and overcome potential setbacks when dealing in that scene? How do you work to make the startups who use your spaces more resilient? 

    LV: We serve to provide the foundation or provide a safety net of sorts. We’ve methodically worked out potential paths these startups could take, identified needed resources, and even identified common challenges that startups might encounter, and we work to tackle these challenges head on. 

    We address these challenges before the startups themselves confront them, and then work to make all the necessary resources available to them to give them the best chance.  

    Most of these startups are in the biotech and MedTech realms. From what we’ve seen, regulatory and IP complexity are the two main major challenges that these startups face. So, we’ve identified and paired up certain resources and subject-matter experts in those realms, like different law firms and regulatory experts, to help them navigate those challenges.  

    San Diego’s biotech scene is world famous. How do you see yourselves positioned in this space? How do you see yourself contributing to building resilience both within the scene and within the broader San Diego community? 

    LV: We see ourselves mainly as a resource provider in the biotech space. Our physical space is critically important – we have a nice tech lab and a nice wet lab, which those companies need the most. This sort of sets the biotech companies apart, since they really need that physical lab space. For example, during COVID, we didn’t really feel as affected as other people who worked from home, since we actually couldn’t work from home – we needed to be in the lab!  

    Basically, our niche is now being a resource provider for biotech startups. 

    A peek inside the lab!

    You guys provide physical resources such as lab space, but you also host a lot of events that provide space for companies, founders, and people interested in that whole scene. So really, it seems like your main resource is providing space?  

    LV: Yes, we provide those events, and a lot of events on the educational side. We also provide a lot of networking opportunities. That’s a pretty important thing as well, we’ve found, especially for young startups that are fundraising.  

    What projects are you most proud of? 

    Austin Strain: What I feel is most impactful is our Catalyst program. When I got a chance to actually talk to the people and participants who went through that, to see how much they learned and grew, it was absolutely remarkable. 

    Our Catalyst program is basically a ten-week program for students of all levels – undergrads, graduates, PHDs, postdocs- to get entrepreneurial training and to get a hands-on opportunity to solve real-world problems. Throughout those 10 weeks they learn how to set up a business, and then, at the end, get to pitch that business to experts, investors, and other people who can give them feedback on how well their entrepreneurial journey went.  

    I personally know how important this is. I studied entrepreneurship in school, and I also took part in a startup summer program. I saw how much that helped me personally with my own career growth. So, getting to meet all the participants at the end of our own Catalyst program and some of the older participants as well was really nostalgic and gratifying for me, because I remember when I was exactly where they were! I remember getting to that pitch day and how nervous and exciting it is! And then hearing what they have learned, and recollecting what I personally learned was just so impactful. It was like you could literally see a bright future.  

    LV: We do this cohort every summer. And in the beginning, it’s always the same – they’ll come up with their one-minute elevator pitch and they’re very timid and shy, saying things like “I don’t know how to talk about myself.” And then just 10 weeks later, you see so much growth! They’re no longer that timid, they’re outgoing and putting themselves out there and pitching their companies and projects. It’s just incredible.  

    So, another one of your major resource spaces is just giving others the opportunity and mental space to grow?  

    AS: Yes, yes, for sure! So, if you’re interested, we’re offering our next one to the broader startup community next year.  

    Can you talk about the biggest obstacles you’ve overcome so far? How have you worked to build resilience within your own company and culture, or those you serve? 

    LV: Honestly, the biggest one is providing access to capital. These are very, very early-stage companies, just trying to find traction in the world. They need people, they need institutions, and they need capital to help get them to the next level.  

    We will be rolling out with more programs this coming year to help them do that – to raise capital and get to that next level. 

    In addition to lab space, Aquillius also provides offices.

    What are the biggest opportunities that you see in the biotech scene in San Diego? What role do you play in filling these gaps? 

    LV: San Diego is a huge biotech hub in and of itself. But even though it’s so large, it has the potential to grow.  

    When it comes to investing in these projects, San Diego has a pretty big angel investing scene – the venture capital scene still seems to be up and coming. But I think that we’re going to see some growth in that sector in the coming year.  

    The whole investing scene has been very slow really, because of the pandemic and the slowdown in the economy the past few years. But I think it’s coming back, and I think it will be a pretty vibrant scene going into 2024. 

    So, do you see yourself playing a role and filling the access gap to venture capital?  

    LV: Absolutely! So, we’re hoping to have a fund ready to go by next year that can invest in these companies. And we will be rolling out those programs that I talked about earlier. We’re going to hold more pitch days and things like that, centered on different themes and industries to attract those VCs to be a part of all of it as well. 

    AS: In addition, we work to reduce access gaps wherever we see them. We host a number of events around women in investing, women in science, and trying to encourage women, or others who are normally not as active in the science and founders community, to be involved. That focus is very important to us – it’s another way we build a more resilient future, by making sure everyone has access to the tools and resources they need to succeed. Really trying to empower women to be involved in the ecosystem.  

    So not only are we filling a gap for capital in the biotech space, but we’re providing a leg up for groups and communities who might need it most. And that’s definitely something different and important that we do. 

    Looking to the future, what do you see as the future for Aquillius? Are there any specific opportunities and risks that you are looking to navigate in the future, both near and long term? 

    LV: As far as growth goes, we’re just getting started! We’ve built out the lab space, we’re trying to attract companies to come in here, build, and be part of our community, and then just see where it goes!  

    We do have longer-term plans, such as growing to more locations, but those are definitely long term. We’ll see how this current model works in 2024. We just want to be able to provide more resources to the broader startup community, even beyond just San Diego! 

    What are the best ways for people to learn more about, or get involved with, Aquillius? 

    AS: The easiest way is to just check out all the information on our website. If you’d like a brochure, we have those too. But realistically, the best way is to book a tour! Come see it firsthand and say hi! We’ve found tours really spark the types of questions that we like to answer, that aren’t necessarily found on our website.  

    But yes, the best way is to book a tour, or come to a networking event! 

    Want to learn more? Go more in depth here:  

    Aquillius Website 

    Book a tour 

    Upcoming events 

    Aquillius Catalyst Program 

    Aquillius LinkedIn 

  • Innovative Ocean Intelligence: A Dive into Seatrec’s Sustainable Technology with Dr. Yi Chao

    Innovative Ocean Intelligence: A Dive into Seatrec’s Sustainable Technology with Dr. Yi Chao

    I was delighted to have the opportunity to speak with Dr. Yi Chao, Founder and CEO of Seatrec, a startup that designs and manufactures products that generate electricity from the temperature fluctuations in the ocean.

    When I first heard about this technology, it almost sounded like magic! A way to generate energy just from the naturally occurring ocean changing temperature? Wow!

    It turns out that it’s actually not that new of an idea – the research has been around since the 1970s, but generating enough energy from these fluctuations to, say, power the energy grid, is remarkably expensive.

    This is where Seatrec is different. They’ve scaled this technology down to essentially provide infinite, sustainable energy to power research instruments, like undersea robots.  Currently, these robots have to completely rely on the dwindling charges of battery packs, brought to them by researchers on ships – making research costly, difficult, and primarily close to shore. Thanks to Seatrec’s technology, researchers are no longer beholden to voyaging out on ships, and can gather more data from autonomous robots that can endure missions for much longer in harsher conditions – sparking the next generation of ocean data insights. 

    You’ll learn about how Seatrec uses this technology to power ocean research all around the globe, how Yi’s science background made him more resilient for the business world, and some of the major research successes that this technology has enabled.

    It was a great interview with a company on the cutting edge of energy and ocean research. If you’d like to learn more, you can explore Seatrec’s website!

    The Founder and CEO of Seatrec, Dr. Yi Chao (right)

    I’m chiefly interested in the concept of resilience – personal, communal, and societal. What does the concept of resilience mean to you and Seatrec?

    For us at Seatrec, we’re primarily concerned with societal resilience, since we deal with the planet’s resources. We’re totally ocean focused. There’s only so much land on earth, but over 70% of the planet is covered by the ocean. So it makes sense to turn to the ocean to find solutions to problems that we can’t solve by land!

    Everyone knows about traditional ocean industries like shipping, but there are a lot of interesting things being done with resource exploration in the ocean – whether it’s oil and gas, offshore energy, offshore wind farming, or even growing our own protein instead of fishing. The ocean is becoming more and more important – and as it becomes more important, it’s also in more danger.

    Seatrec was formed so we can understand the ocean in a deeper way, manage our resources, and protect our ocean. We’re bringing new and innovative technology to study the ocean and collect data.

    Really, when it comes down to it, our mission is to digitize the ocean and capture the ocean’s data, so we can better understand and predict the ocean – all so we can better protect this vital resource.

    I feel when people think about the ocean and generating energy, most people think about waves. However, you generate energy from the ocean’s temperature fluctuations. Can you talk about how you’re solving that problem, and the approach you’re taking?

    Sure! So the concept of OTEC (or, ocean thermal energy conversion) is actually not that new.

    The first wave of dealing with renewable ocean energy, including OTEC, was back in the 1970s. A lot of research was done back then that pioneered the whole field – studies were done with ocean thermal energy, ocean waves, ocean wind, everything. A number of different governments spent a lot of money on renewable energy to support the innovation, but when the oil crisis ended, everyone just went back to gasoline like nothing had happened. A lot of the research only started to come back in the recent decades.

    The technology for ocean thermal energy conversion is relatively mature, but it’s very costly. You have limited geographic distribution since you have to work in the tropics where the water is warm. You then have to pump cold water up from the deep ocean. Converting that small difference into energy is rather costly, and is just unrealistic to use that energy to supply the power grid.

    This is actually why you’ll hear a lot more about offshore wind when it comes to the ocean. Ocean waves are still in the early stages of commercialization as well.

    Where we come in is, we decided to utilize ocean thermal energy to power sensors and underwater robotics, not the power grid. We want to focus on ocean sensing, to provide ocean intelligence, and this can support other forms of energy – like providing data for the offshore wind energy market, and to help those companies optimize the planning, the sights, quantify impact, monitor their operations. And that’s a unique angle.

    So, would it be fair to say that your technology is like a recharging battery pack that could go on measurement instruments, allowing those instruments to stay out longer and be more self-contained?

    Yes, that’s correct!

    Essentially, we deliver the first self-charging underwater subsea robot. There are a lot of robots on the surface. They can be powered by solar, wind, and waves. But ours is the first that can power itself underneath the water. We can go as deep as 1000 meters today, and, if we want to, even as deep as 2000 meters in the near future! Today’s subsea robots are powered by batteries with limited lifetime and capabilities.  When the battery runs out, we need to send ships to replace those dead batteries or the robots fall to the bottom of the ocean. If you want to collect data far offshore, you need to use a bigger ship. This causes a huge carbon footprint, there need to be lots of people onboard, and it’s just extremely costly. Ship time starts to cost tens of thousands of dollars a day!

    Our robot can recharge its batteries without the need of ships, and therefore be scaled up.  Today, there are thousands of subsea robots in the ocean. In the next decade, this number will go up tenfold or even hundredfold.  

    When I was researching this company, I see that you’re the rare oceanographer who stays far away from the ocean due to seasickness! I’m glad to see that didn’t stop you.

    I was trained as an ocean scientist, and I have a Ph.D. in oceanography from Princeton University. I then worked at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena for many years. And even though my work was related to the ocean, I tried to stay away from the ocean as long as I could! For example, I developed a satellite to measure salinity on the surface of the ocean, from hundreds of miles away, using remote sensing technology – so I studied the ocean from space!

    Through my work, I continued developing computer models of the ocean and studying it that way. And eventually I thought, if I can develop robots that go to sea, I don’t have to physically go on ships! As long as I can measure the water, I think I’ll be happy.

    Seatrec’s technology generates power through the ocean’s temperature differences.

    Startups are notoriously prone to risk. What are some ways you’ve worked to build resilience within your company?

    The biggest risk for any startup is cash flow. How do you stay alive? How do you find just enough capital to help you grow? You don’t want to grow too fast, because you may not have the right product that fits the market. And then, of course, you always have to make payroll at the end of every pay period. Cash flow is the challenge we are constantly struggling with.

    The ocean market is very fragmented. It’s not as well-defined as other areas like consumer products, or startup categories like fintech or agtech. The market is emerging. It’s still new. My goal, the biggest challenge, is finding the product that fits the market, so we can raise the capital and grow. How do you get your product to take off?

    That’s my job, mainly. Opening up new markets, coordinating different sectors of the market, defining the market, and product market fit. Then, finding the right time to scale. Raising money from investors and then growing and scaling our technology in the marketplace!

    You have a significant background in engineering and oceanography. Has there been any surprising crossover from the science world to the business world? Anything that’s been a particularly good fit?

    I think as a scientist, you automatically build resilience. I do experiments, and they often fail. But then, eventually, you pick a new way, and make it right the next time! And you keep trying and trying to get it right. That’s my mentality, and I think that will carry through my entrepreneurial career.

    Being a first-time entrepreneur, I’ve read lots of books, talked to lots of mentors and different people who have experience to grow from 0 to 1 and implement deep tech successfully in the commercial market. That’s helped guide me day to day, and helped me keep looking forward and following my vision into the future, but at the same time staying focused on the present enough to continue making payroll and scaling the company.

    San Diego’s biotech scene is well-regarded. And Seatrec seems to be especially relevant to the San Diego area, poised to take advantage of engineering and oceanography pipelines from universities like UCSD and Scripps. How would you describe the San Diego business scene? Are there any pros and cons that you see about being in San Diego?

    We actually moved to San Diego for precisely that reason! Los Angeles is great for certain areas of tech, like consumer tech and aerospace. But I think that San Diego is one of the few ideal locations in the country to grow a blue tech company!

    As you mentioned, we have the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, all the engineering out of UCSD, a big naval presence, and access to supply chains. You have the port, coast guards. Even the border. I see all of these not just as adding to our intellectual capacity, but as an opportunity with many stakeholders and potential customers – not just from the research side, but from the defense and military side.

    We also have a great investor ecosystem – there are lots of investors in San Diego that support our industry. Really, San Diego is the perfect place to grow into our next chapter.

    Seatrec’s latest product, the InfiniTE float.

    Have there been any major successes that Seatrec has celebrated?

    Yes! Recently, one of the biggest successes we’ve seen is opening up a new market and making the customer very happy. We were able to enable the customer to do something that they were not able to do in the past.

    For the first time, we were able to add an acoustic hydrophone, an underwater listening device, to our robots. This was impossible before due to power limitations.  We deployed our robots in the ocean out in Monterey and we heard whales singing! It’s tough to see what’s happening under the water, but sound provides a way to discover what’s going on.  In fact, when it comes to the ocean, it’s all about sound.

    This hydrophone was really cool. It provides almost like a natural fingerprint of all the activity of the ocean, from the natural sounds of the wind and waves, to the manmade sound of the ships and other vessels, then the marine mammals and the rest of the ecosystem.  We can learn how all of these groups interact together.

    It was very interesting – traditionally, those hydrophones have to be powered by ships, and the surface is extremely noisy, so you couldn’t hear very well. Our robot, on the other hand, can dive much deeper where it’s much quieter. You can hear for miles and miles. It’s a lot like how if you were building a telescope, you’d want to build it on the top of a mountain. That’s the same principle with this ocean robot!

    So that’s really our major milestone – our customers can now do something that’s never been done before. We get to enable other technologies too. We can build our business model around these early customers and early technology adopters. And this makes us very excited to grow and make our investors happy about the total available market.

    Looking ahead, what do you see as the future for Seatrec? Are there any opportunities or risks you are working to navigate?

    In the near term, well, we launched our product early this year. We’ve been going to a few trade shows, getting customer feedback. We’ve been very encouraged about the traction so far, and there is product market fit. Ocean tech is hard – it’s taken years of engineering and commercialization efforts, but we have a strong differentiator to sell! We have some significant sales so far, and we interest for increased sales targets for next year.

    We hope to break even on our current operation next year, that’s our main milestone. And then, further out, we want to take the opportunity to scale. We’re planning to fundraise our Series A next year to put some more fuel in the fire. We want to take Seatrec to the next level.

    Then, in addition, we also have a really interesting project called Project FIND. This project is really about providing this cutting edge technology, and our robots, to researchers and customers who traditionally can’t afford them or don’t have the opportunity.

    We launched this project two years ago, hoping to provide cutting edge technology, like the same type of technology a researcher at Scripps would have, to countries and researchers who normally can’t access it. The ocean is global, it affects everybody. So everybody should be able to study and protect it. And we hope that, if people are interested, they can reach out to us, be a part of it, and can help out.

    So through Project FIND, you provide your technology to different countries to help foster more scientific exploration?

    Yes!

    Our end-to-end product with the platform and sensors sells for between $50,000 -$75,000. That’s what we sell to universities, researchers, nonprofits, and the government. But we’ve been able to provide one to Mexico already, as well as Brazil and South Africa. We’re working on two more for Sri Lanka and Ghana. They’re very interested in the hydrophone I mentioned earlier. A lot of researchers in Sri Lanka, for example, monitor whales. They have conservation programs, they understand the ocean. But they have to use binoculars to identify whales! If we can provide a hydrophone robot to them that lets them hear for miles, they can expand their search area and better understand whale behavior protect their part of the ocean.

    What are the best ways for people to learn about, or get involved with, Seatrec?

    You can certainly check out our website, or follow us on LinkedIn or Twitter. We have some interesting projects coming up!

    Want to go more in depth? Learn more here:

    Seatrec website

    Seatrec technology

    Project FIND

  • Planting an Urban Forest: An Interview with Tree San Diego

    Planting an Urban Forest: An Interview with Tree San Diego

    When you think of city management and design, do trees come to mind?

    The good folks at Tree San Diego think so, and think that you should too!

    Tree San Diego is an urban forestry nonprofit who works to increase the quality and density of San Diego’s urban forest — and they have some thoughts about the importance of urban trees and how they contribute to a resilient community.

    Trees, and by extension, the “urban canopy” (the layer of leaves, branches, and stems of trees that cover the ground in an urban environment when viewed from above), have an important role in city design. They make cities cooler, quieter, more desirable, more efficient, and safer — and therefore, more resilient. San Diego has recently announced a plan for a dramatic increase in our urban canopy in hopes of reaping some of these benefits — and I turned to the experts at Tree San Diego to find out more.

    In this interview, you’ll learn all about why we need to have trees in our urban spaces, not just on our trails, as well as the number of benefits that urban trees and urban forests provide! You’ll also learn how Tree San Diego works to select their species, how they account for disease and pests, and the role of trees in urban planning.

    If you’d like to learn more about Tree San Diego and their mission, you can check them out on their website. I’d also like to give a special thanks to Elekra Fike-Data, Chris Klier, Chuck Morgan, and Kurt Peacock from Tree San Diego for their help and expertise with this interview.

    What does the concept of resilience mean to you and Tree San Diego? And how are urban trees part of a resilient community?

    Resilience is the ability to recover from problems or conditions that are not ideal. We at Tree SD are choosing tough, low to moderate water-use tree species to better prepare for the warming, drier climate we will face in the coming years.

    San Diego hopes to increase their urban canopy to 35% of the city by 2035. Can you talk about the benefits of having such a large, developed urban canopy, and what that would mean to the average resident?

    Hitting the 35% cover target will improve the quality of life for everyone in San Diego! Some of the immediate benefits include lowering temperatures, reducing pollution and storm water runoff, blocking ultraviolet light more effectively. Residents will want to be outdoors more, more active in recreational activity and lowering heating and cooling bills, which burns less fossil fuels.

    Community Planting Day! (PC: Tree San Diego)

    Many folks associate San Diego (and, more broadly, Southern California), with palm trees — which are actually a non-native species! Can you talk about your process of choosing which trees (and where) to plant?

    Palms may be iconic, but they do not provide the ecological benefits that broadleaf or evergreen trees provide. They require annual maintenance which makes them more expensive to maintain than other trees.

    We base our tree selections on the soil volume available and the utility situation, such as overhead wires, to prolong the useful life of trees. Microclimates can also affect what we select — we need to keep in mind dimensions like sun vs. shade, soil grade, and proximity of buildings and other fixed infrastructure to the site, ultimately striving to maximize the size of any tree in a given site. The bigger the tree can grow, the more benefits it provides!

    San Diego is known for being an extremely biodiverse area, and there are a number of extremely unique environments in the county — from desert, to mountains, to ocean, just to name a few. Can you talk about the importance of wilding the urban environment? Have you received support from the outdoors community for your initiative?

    Wilding and rewilding our urban environments are important since it improves health, provides areas for recreation and relaxation, improves biodiversity, and expands our wildlands and ecosystem restoration. Here in San Diego, we see examples of this in our local estuaries from Carlsbad, to Carmel Valley, and Imperial Beach. Balboa Park is another example, which has both wilderness areas and more formal, landscaped areas. The various cities within San Diego are focusing now on more “plantscaping,” and adding trees to our urban areas. In fact, in small open areas around the city, local officials are now looking to create pocket parks!

    Planting an urban tree in Caesar Chavez park! (Photo: Tree San Diego Facebook)

    Water use is always a major concern for any SoCal resident. How does planting more trees affect a city’s water and usage?

    Planting trees uses a lot of water, especially during the establishment period. However, I believe the benefits gained with planting more trees far outweigh the additional water needed. For example, a tree cover will save 11,000 tons of soil annually in a medium sized city. A tree-shaded, air conditioned home can improve its efficiency by 10% and saves up to 34% of annual costs. Trees planted in the right place for a home can reduce heating costs up to 25%. Trees are natural air conditioners, cooling the air through transpiration (how plants evaporate water). Trees improve real estate value by 1% of sale price. Trees reduce and mask noise with white noise. One acre of trees will provide enough oxygen each day for 18 people to breath, while, at the same time, absorbing pollutants and filtering particulates. Trees planted in parking lots can reduce the ambient temperature by 3% and car interior by 30%. 100 mature trees intercept 210,000 gallons of water per year, allowing cities to spend less money on storm water control and keeping water pollution out of our estuaries, rivers and ocean. The list of benefits goes on and on!

    On the campus of UC San Diego, there are 27,000 trees. These trees sequester 7,560 tons of CO2 annually, and remove 6,210 pounds of pollutants from the air. A study conducted by the human-environment laboratory of the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign concluded that a tree-filled community recorded a lower incidence of violence and vandalism than a community that was less forested. Additionally, trees can lower stress and help provide speedy health recovery. The benefits are monumental!

    Meanwhile, the city of San Diego is working to be water independent by recycling water. By the end of 2035, nearly 50% of San Diego water will be provided by taking waste water and purifying it to high-quality drinking water, and will actually cleaner and safer than our present drinking water. You can learn more about this initiative here. So there are a lot of things at play!

    You also run a project that diverts end-of-life urban trees away from the wood-chipper/landfill and towards other products. Can you talk more about the success of this program, and the difference between what happens to a tree in this program vs a normal urban tree?

    The Treejuvenation project was a small pilot that really started when we realized how many exotic trees are grown in the temparate San Diego climate. Once these trees reach the end of their life, they can be collected for their viable wood. The urban forester now thinks about what trees should be planted on a longer scale — not just thinking of planting the tree for now, but thinking about the end of life, and planting trees that can eventually turn into desirable lumber. As another benefit, the tree care industry strives to ensure that urban trees grow as straight as possible which makes them ideal for harvesting for lumber as opposed to being cut up and dumped in the landfill or chopped into firewood!

    What do you see as the future of the tree in urban planning and design? Have you seen an uptick in support from governments and planners in including more environmental elements such as trees in new developments?

    Trees are only increasing in importance for urban planning as we move forward into a changing climate. Many new developments have trees and environmental elements as a focal point, rather than an afterthought. This is a trend that we expect to see throughout urban planning, especially with support and funding opportunities from government and other stakeholders.

    How are you helping build resilience into Tree San Diego? What is a major obstacle that you have overcome?

    Tree San Diego is building organizational resilience through diversifying funding sources, strengthening partnerships, and growing to meet growing needs. While not unique to our organization, limitations related to COVID-19 were a major challenge. Tree San Diego prides itself on connecting and working with the community, but during the height of the pandemic we were unable to work face-to-face with folks. Instead, we adapted our programs, conducting our training virtually and delivering trees to be planted at individuals’ homes rather than community planting events.

    (Photo: Tree San Diego Facebook)

    Can you talk about your biggest success so far as part of Tree San Diego? What helped you achieve it?

    Tree San Diego was recently awarded a federal IRA Urban Forestry Grant to continue planting trees, training candidates through our Treejectory workforce development program, and building a regional urban forestry management plan. This $2 million grant award will allow us to bring the benefits of trees to thousands of people while empowering communities in priority populations zones to grow and care for a newly planted urban forest.

    I know you partner with a number of groups around San Diego. Do you have plans to partner with urban forestry groups outside of San Diego?

    Yes, we will work alongside the US Forest Service, CAL FIRE, and other NGOs in California to achieve our goals of building a greener future.

    What is next for Tree San Diego?

    Tree San Diego will embark on a path to expand our impact, influence, and statewide partnership. As our team plans to celebrate the organization’s 10th anniversary in 2024, we are currently building models to broaden our shared urban forest and plan for sustainable urban forestry management throughout the region.

    What are the best ways for people to learn more about, or get involved with, Tree San Diego?

    Get involved and stay in contact with our team by joining the TSD Leaflet Newsletter, signing up for Tree Steward training, becoming a Terrific Tree Member, and donating to the cause.

    Want to learn more? Go more in depth here:

    Tree San Diego Website

    Urban Tree Canopy Overview

    City of San Diego’s Forest Management Programs

    Get a Free Tree from the City of San Diego!

    City of San Diego’s Tree Canopy Plan

  • An Introduction to Exploring Resilience: Three Spheres for Personal, Communal, and Societal Growth

    An Introduction to Exploring Resilience: Three Spheres for Personal, Communal, and Societal Growth

    My whole life, I’ve always been extremely curious.

    This has led me to hurtle headlong towards learning about numerous pursuits (or as my wife calls them, “rabbit holes”) on all kinds of ridiculous topics (sorry about holding you hostage while I pontificated on the Rime of the Ancient Mariner, honey!) because, to me, the main overarching hobby of mine is simply learning something new.

    The past few years, I began to notice that many of my hobbies and rabbit holes all had one overarching theme in common — you could file them all under the umbrella of resilience. I realized that all of my disparate hobbies and interests like Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, permaculture and aquaculture, urban design, backpacking, small business, the circular economy, fitness, and many more, could all be shoehorned under one (or more!) of three different spheres of building resilience — personal resilience, communal resilience, and societal resilience. Over the life of this blog, I hope to explore each of these spheres in turn and highlight examples from my own life, community, and areas of interest that highlight resilience — and teach others how to build resilience in themselves and those around them.

    First, let’s get some definitions down. What do I mean by resilience? Resilience is not just the ability of an individual, community, and society to adapt and thrive in the face of challenges, but about their ability to lessen or avoid the negative consequences and impacts of challenges through strength and a coherent strategic vision to plan for any issues.

    Perhaps this definition is impacted by the nearness of the Covid pandemic — a total shutdown of society that showcased an incredible lack of societal resilience from top to bottom and highlighted just how susceptible many of our social structures we take for granted really are when confronted by an outside force. However, while society on a grand scale languished, many people and local community organizations showed remarkable resilience— leading me to believe that there are different spheres of resilience that should be examined.

    The first sphere is PERSONAL.

    Personal resilience refers to the ability of individuals to perceive, withstand, and overcome obstacles. It encompasses a wide range of factors, including physical, mental, emotional, social, and spiritual wellbeing. I hope to explore the many ways to build personal resilience, by developing skills and habits such as fitness, connection with nature, exploring decision making frameworks, the science of curiosity, and more.

    The second sphere is COMMUNAL.

    Communal resilience refers to the ability of groups of people to be organized and structured in such a way that they lessen the impact of adversity, strengthen communal bonds, and thrive in the face of challenges. Topics might include strengthening families and neighborhoods, building strong bonds within the larger community, highlighting local businesses and institutions that are important to the future (and past!) of a community, fostering a sense of belonging and connection with the nearby natural environment, strong urban design, promoting local food systems, and more.

    The third sphere is SOCIETAL.

    Societal resilience involves adaptability and strength on a large scale when faced with global problems. These challenges can include things such as climate change and resource depletion, or even inflation, monetary policy, and other far reaching, future facing problems. For my purposes, it involves building strong and sustainable economic systems, promoting sustainable agriculture, and developing innovative solutions to environmental problems. I hope to showcase new technologies, large companies, interesting books, and thought leaders who look ahead, solving tough problems and making humanity more resilient as a whole.

    This blog is intended to be more experimental and philosophical about the topic of resilience than a manifesto or call to arms. Its main intention is to meander slowly along, exploring many different facets of the three main pillars of resilience — personal, communal, and societal. I hope to introduce you to new concepts, inspiring people, and interesting thoughts that can fall under the resilience umbrella, and I hope that I’m introduced to some new ideas along the way too. I also hope that this is the last blog post I write in the first person!

    If you have a company, person, book, or hobby that exemplifies resilience, please let me know. I’d love to examine it in greater detail.

    Looking forward to exploring the topic of resilience with you all.