New Superintendent of Parks and Forestry Takes Root

September 23, 2026
• The town’s new superintendent of Parks and Forestry comes to Needham via Brockton.

Tim Carpenter’s career in “the green industry,” as he calls it, was never supposed to be permanent. He planned on becoming a lawyer, following in his father’s footsteps. After a string of landscaping jobs, Carpenter took another gig as he prepared to retake the LSATs, thinking he’ll have “one more year of working outside, doing something different, before I sit behind a desk for the rest of my life.”

He started at the Dedham Country and Polo Club as an irrigation technician and rose to assistant superintendent in two years. Before long, he was in it. He spent the last 15 years as superintendent of the City of Brockton’s parks and as the city’s interim superintendent of cemeteries before arriving in Needham.

He started as Needham’s superintendent of Parks and Forestry on Sept. 8. He does have an office, but one just steps away from the Needham Reservoir, and his job often takes him outside to the town’s fields, parks, parklets and other outdoor spaces.

In coming to Needham, Carpenter said he hopes to gain more insight into the forestry side of operations. He’s currently pursuing his arborist certification, which will inform him on proper tree selection, consultation on shade trees and the town’s setback planning program.

“That’s something that was, for me, one of the key ingredients to coming here to Needham, was that it was an opportunity to really expand my base of knowledge, and that really intrigued me,” Carpenter said in an interview. “[The certification] will give me the qualifications to be a little more involved in that.”

Two weeks into the job, he’s already heard from residents on trees. He’s so far responded to “a lot of tree calls” as he familiarizes himself with the process, he said.

“It is very apparent that residents here love their trees,” he said. “I mean, that’s great. There’s so many benefits to strong, what I would call forest management, tree management, that really benefit everyone, even if you don’t like trees.”

Parks and Forestry oversees the town’s public shade trees, assists recreational programs and community events — including the blue tree lighting — and maintains parks and sports fields, as well as the grounds at Ridge Hill Reservation. For Carpenter, his days are a combination of staff coordination, long-term planning and budgeting, as well as field work.

Carpenter succeeds Ed Olsen, who served as superintendent since 2010. Olsen left earlier this year and is now the park and tree superintendent in Wellesley.

The Needham Select Board formally met Carpenter at its Tuesday meeting, where Director of Public Works Carys Lustig introduced him.

“We know he has some big shoes to fill in Needham, and certainly a presence in the community,” Lustig said, “so we’re really excited to have him on board.”

The superintendent of Parks and Forestry is “a very visible role,” board Vice Chair Josh Levy said.

“You may get some flack from residents, but you know what, it’s O.K. because it’s a really important job,” Levy said.

Amid recent discussion about funding the upkeep of Needham’s baseball and softball diamonds, Olsen was at the center of several tense public meetings. Needham Baseball and Softball, the town’s local Little League organization, have requested the town’s 25 usable diamonds — particularly the three 90-foot diamonds — be better maintained to meet their standards.

During an interview, Carpenter acknowledged the drainage issue at Memorial Park, where the grass baseball diamond sits “at the base of a hill,” he said. That leads to water pooling after bouts of rain. The department is currently looking into possible solutions to address that issue, he added.

Based on his observations, the fields are in good condition. Safety, he said, “is the number one priority.”

“You want all users, no matter what age group, to walk off the field safe, and I don’t see many safety concerns out there to be honest with you,” Carpenter said. “I think in general the ball fields look very good. I have to see in the spring how they perform a little bit.”

Once the season starts back up, he said he anticipates tweaking maintenance schedules to best take care of the town’s diamonds.

In the last two weeks, Carpenter said he’s explored Needham’s outdoor spaces whenever he can. While conducting an assessment behind Newman Elementary School, he said he enjoyed walking the boardwalk trail.

“It just boggled my mind that that would exist the way it does,” Carpenter said of the trail. “Even just here around the corner, at DeFazio, the amount of varied uses of a fairly limited space is terrific and took some great planning.”

Originally from Schenectady, New York, Carpenter spent much of his childhood in Hartford before returning to his hometown, where he studied philosophy at Union College. At the Select Board meeting, Carpenter fondly recalled climbing a ginkgo tree as a child on campus while visiting his grandfather, Bill Huntley, who was a professor there. Huntley worked to replace campus trees struck by Dutch elm disease in the 1950s.

Carpenter has lived in the Boston area for nearly 30 years and received a certificate in turf management from UMass Amherst. He also previously worked for a landscaper based in Needham.

As he sat in a DPW conference room, overlooking a forest of trees near the reservoir, he signaled his high hopes for the new job.

“It is a very exciting opportunity. It is different from Brockton for sure, but there are so many exciting possibilities and really, for me, challenges, to learn the new system here,” he said. “But I think it’s going to be an excellent experience.”