Texan leads tree 'masterpiece' at N.Y. memorial: Remembering 9/11

Tom Cox’s work as the “Red Adair of transplanting trees” has taken him from the manicured lawns of River Oaks to the 18th hole at Pebble Beach to Israel, where a beloved 1,000-year-old fig was holding up a road project.

Over three decades, he’s built his Tomball-based business into an international enterprise with offices from California to New York to Dubai.

But no job has been more complicated or emotionally gratifying than the one he’s been working on in lower Manhattan the past five years.

Cox, who grew up in Sharpstown and attended Texas A&M before starting his landscape company in 1977, is in charge of moving hundreds of trees to the Sept. 11 memorial under development in New York City. By the time the project is completed in five or six years, it will have cost $15 million to $20 million and consumed a decade of Cox’s life.

Link: Texan leads tree 'masterpiece' at N.Y. memorial