I'm Mike Sullivan, the creator of this site. I'm a venture capital lawyer by day, but have always been interested in trees - and especially San Francisco's trees - as a hobby.  

My interest in San Francisco's trees started in the early 1990s, when I began volunteering with Friends of the Urban Forest - planting trees every Saturday morning with that group in neighborhoods all over the city.  I later joined FUF's board of directors, and served on the board for 12 years, including a time as board president.    I serve on the City’s Environment Commission, and for a number of years on the City’s Urban Forestry Council, an advisory board on all things tree-related for San Francisco.

In early 2001, I had the good fortune to run into Arthur Lee Jacobson, author of Trees of Seattle, and he convinced me to tackle the project of a book about San Francisco's trees.  During the dot-com crash of 2001-2002, venture capital lawyers had very little to do, so I had the time to write Trees of San Francisco, which was published by Pomegranate Press in 2004. Wilderness Press published a second edition in 2013.

I live in San Francisco's Cole Valley neighborhood with my husband Paul, our son Joseph and our labradoodle Mather (yes, named after San Francisco’s Camp Mather).  We planted the soapbark tree (Quillaja saponaria) in front of our Woodland Avenue home the same week Joe was born in 2004.

There’s a great audio link here to an interview I did with San Francisco’s “Roll Over Easy” radio station. It was a fun half hour, including lots of good San Francisco tree questions from their audience. There’s lots of other media about me and Trees of San Francisco over on the “Book” part of this site.

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And if you see a car around town with this license plate, it’s mine - say hello!

To reach me, send me an email at michaelsullivan415 [at] gmail.com. On Instagram, I’m sftreeguy, and my content there is 100% tree-focused, so follow me there!