Alumni Profile

In August 1998, I conceived of and launched the development of the Natural History Museum of the Adirondacks/The Wild Center. I spearheaded the start-up of the organization including the initial broad-based public campaign to get the project underway and the recruitment of the Museum’s Board of Trustees and world-class designers and construction managers. In October 1999 the board appointed me as full-time project director. I served on the board and led the operations effort that resulted in this $25 million, 35,000-square-foot new kind of museum. I was appointed managing director just prior to opening. The Museum has been featured in media across the country and in a post-opening documentary on a variety of PBS stations.

One of my important contributions while working for DEC was to help lay historical groundwork in regional cooperation on open space planning issues through the Region 5 Open Space Conservation Advisory Committee. The success of this 10-year process allowed a number of major open space initiatives to be carried out from that time period forward. Through this effort I met and worked with diverse interest groups, organizations, and major business interests around the state including the Nature Conservancy, Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks, NYS Conservation Council, Audubon Society, fish and game clubs, area colleges and universities, tourism officials, environmental management councils, lake associations, planning officials, chambers of commerce, International Paper Company, Domtar, Finch Pruyn, General Electric Company, and more.

In other positions I worked on a variety of unit management plans for the Adirondack Forest Preserve; conducted citizen participation programs for the Inactive Hazardous Waste Sites Program; oversaw regional permitting, monitoring, and enforcement activities for the Mined Land Reclamation Program; and assisted with the development of the Generic Environmental Impact Statement for the state’s Oil, Gas and Solution Mining Program. I also reviewed environmental impacts and obtained public input on proposals under Federal Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program and worked on public education and outreach activities associated with Automobile Emissions and the NYC State Implementation Plan for Air Quality.

• 2007-Present, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) Director for Region 5. DEC’s Region 5 includes Clinton, Essex, Franklin, Fulton, Hamilton, Saratoga, Warren and Washington counties.
  
• 1999-2007,Natural History Museum of the Adirondacks/ The Wild Center, Tupper Lake, NY, Vice President of the Board and Managing Director

• 1980-1999, NYS Department of Environmental Conservation, Albany & Ray Brook, NY, Citizen Participation Specialist II (1992-99), Mined Land Reclamation Specialist (1986-89), Environmental Management Specialist (1982-87), and Citizen Participation Specialist (1989-92 and 1980-82).

Associations

• Executive Committee of the NYS Biodiversity Research Institute (January, 2002)
• Board of Trustees for the Plattsburgh North Country Chamber of Commerce (December 2003)
  
• Board of Trustees for the Lake Placid Sinfonietta (March 2004)
  

• North Country Public Radio Virtual Council (January 2002)