Get To Know Leaf & Limb: Meet John

The first thing I ask everybody is to introduce themselves however they want.

My name is John Brier, and I’ve been working with Leaf & Limb for about three and a half years. I did IT for most of my career, but one day I was on Instagram and I saw an ad that said, “Are you tired of staring at your phone or your screen?” I said, “Yes, I am.” It showed pictures of people climbing trees. I thought, “I could do that.”

And so why Leaf & Limb in particular?

I was raised by a conservationist. My mom started the North Carolina Coastal Land Trust in Wilmington. I was raised with environmental awareness, and it’s mostly been conceptual. Leaf & Limb was an opportunity for me to learn about Nature in a direct way. I jumped at the opportunity to work outdoors, to work with my hands, and to work with people on a regular basis.

We do a lot of different things at Leaf & Limb. What kind of thing do you like best, of all the things you might do in the day?

Obviously climbing is a lot of fun. I really enjoy climbing. I enjoy that every day there are problems to solve. Problem solving is really fun. Working with people on a team where we have to get something done in a day. And at the end of the day, whether you’ve got it done or not, you can see the result of your efforts. You can look at that tree and say, that tree is more structurally sound than it was when I got here. Or if you’re planting trees, you can see those trees are going to turn into a healthy ecosystem in the future. And, along the way, I’ve made the world a little bit better place.

What was the most surprising thing that you found when you switched from doing IT to an outdoor job?

It’s a good question. I would say the most surprising thing is that when you’re working with computers, things are black and white. They either are or they aren’t. You can actually find out a definite answer, why something is working or not working. In Nature, there are no definite answers. And that was actually really hard to learn. Nature is way more complicated than computers. You just really have to know a lot, and you can make educated determinations, but you can’t be a hundred percent certain all the time with Nature.

Can you think of anything that’s happened on the job that’s funny or scary or just plain weird?

One time, while climbing, I found a squirrel nest. I examined it because it was in my way with the work I had to complete. I did not see any squirrels in it, so I knocked it down. The next day when I went to get the truck ready, my colleague Olivia found a baby squirrel inside a rig rope bag. We kind of freaked out because we thought, oh my God, this thing’s been in here since yesterday. Olivia looked up a rescue, and we brought the baby squirrel there so they could rehabilitate it. That was kind of scary.

I remember that one. How big was the squirrel?

It must have been around four or six inches, something like that. But it was furred and had its eyes open.

If you were to give one word of advice to a new crew member on their first day, what would it be?

Just watch everybody and try to learn from how they’re doing things. I think you can learn a lot just from watching and trying to emulate. Really simple things too. I remember I was struggling to keep up with Drew, an experienced crew leader. We were only raking up brush. I would try to rake it all up in one perfect pile and then get all that pile into the sled. But I noticed Drew would just get as much of the pile as he could get into the sled while moving fast and continue making trips, and that he actually was faster, because if you’re stressing over just little stuff to get it all perfectly in one scoop, it actually takes more time and it’s more frustrating. I learned by watching other people and emulating them, seeing how they do things differently than I do, and seeing how it might work better.

You’ve also taken up caving, haven’t you?

I have taken up caving. Melanie here at Leaf & Limb is a huge caver and she introduced me and several others to caving, and I’ve gotten really into it. There’s a lot of crossover with tree climbing because there are vertical caves where you have to use ropes to rappel into, and we use the same single rope system that we use to climb trees. It’s been a blast to go down and explore the underground world.

I really want to ask you about the “space stuff.” I know you’ve done some very interesting things with radios and outer space.

I am a huge space fan and an amateur radio, or ham radio, operator. One of the big bucket list items many amateur radio operators have is to talk to an astronaut on the International Space Station. I actually have done that a few times now. I helped Moore Square Magnet Middle School talk to an astronaut several years ago.

In January, the Raleigh ham club and I helped students at Conn Magnet Elementary School talk to astronaut Chris Williams on the International Space Station. We got a grant to buy all the equipment so we can do it for other schools in the future. It took months of planning and several days off from work to teach the students and set up and test the gear on the school’s roof. We even used some Samson True-Blue rope from work to rig antennas on and off the roof.

What kind of things did the kids ask the astronauts about?

They ask them all kinds of questions. How do you go to the bathroom in space? How do you become an astronaut? Things like that.

And I’ve even had a couple of random unscheduled contacts where you can just get on the radio, and sometimes the astronauts will be listening during their free time. I’ve probably talked to them four times now. It’s really cool to hear them say, “Welcome aboard the International Space Station.” They’ll say your call sign back.

That’s so cool. The first time that happened, did you expect it to happen or just come up randomly?

The first time was with a school, so it was scheduled. I expected it to happen. When I had my random unscheduled contact, I did ask them how the Earth looked from space. Astronaut Serena Auñón-Chancellor said it was so beautiful and that the previous night they had flown over Africa and it was all lit up – they were just looking at it in awe. That was a really, really fun experience to hear her talk about that.

Wow. Were you trying to contact them or did it just happen? Did you go “OMG, it’s the Space Station!”?

Sometimes what’ll happen is a certain astronaut will start making random unscheduled contacts. You’ll see emails and social media posts from other amateur radio operators saying when they heard them recently. So, when I talked to Dr. Auñón-Chancellor, I knew she could be on. I got on and just hoped she would be there, and she was.