Emsud Horozovic
By Rob Heidrick
Friday, 03 April 2009
Emsud Horozovic, Forestry manager, City of Round Rock
- Education: Bachelor’s degree in forestry engineering, University of Zagreb (Croatia); MBA, St. Edwards University
- Experience: Engineer in woodworking machine factory in Croatia until 1993, City of Austin arborist 1994-2000, City of Round Rock forestry manager since 2000
- What are the responsibilities of the forestry department?
- The majority of our job is to plant trees on public property, mostly parks. In the last nine years, we’ve planted a little over 3,500 trees, mostly in city parks.
My program is probably a little different than it is in other communities. I think I can attribute that to the fact that Round Rock probably had more growth and development in a short period of time. In the early years, in particular, I was doing much more education and outreach because when you’re a one-man show, what you do is you go out and preach. Nowadays, since we have the employees, we go out and practice forestry. We are out doing things rather than just talking about doing things.
- Has it been a challenge for the forestry department to keep pace with the area’s growth?
- Lots of times, we are behind. It did slow down a bit recently, but in the last couple of years it has been almost impossible to catch up with everything because we are constantly growing.
- How vocal is the community on protecting trees?
- If you talk to the citizens, they would definitely say, ‘Of course we care for the trees and landscape,’ because that directly impacts the quality of life, not because Round Rock has grown more or less environmental. Basically, trees and landscaping bring a soul to the town. It’s kind of like the arts and the library, that’s what landscaping is to an urban environment.
Residents who live here are in favor of having a higher quality of life that comes with better parks and recreation.
- How does your department work with developers to make sure they follow the tree ordinance?
- Most of the good, high-quality developments and developers — those that want high-end projects and products — do really want to have beautiful landscaping around their commercial buildings because that’s what sells. If you just have a strip center with nothing but concrete, no one will go there. It just looks desolate.
- What are some of your goals for this year?
- We’re basically out there serving the citizens of this town as the stewards of the land to the best of our ability, and just trying to use the resources that we have on a daily basis to the best that we can. We try to move the bar higher and higher each year, saying, ‘Okay, we want to do more and we want to do better.’
As the city grows, our vision and our goals grow with it and sometimes we adjust and tweak our dreams a little bit. But I see a green future in it. All we’re trying to do, as I say sometimes, is keep Round Rock green while growing.
