The Adirondack Council has announced that Allison M. Buckley of Piercefield, St. Lawrence County, has been chosen to replace John Davis as the organization’s Director of Conservation. Davis is due to leave his post at the end of the year.

“We are very pleased to welcome Allison Buckley to the Council’s Program Team,” said Executive Director Brian L. Houseal. “She has a degree in Environmental Science from SUNY Plattsburgh, and a master’s degree in Environmental Law and Policy from Vermont Law School. Allison has experience working for a land trust, a watershed watch group, a winter resort and for the Village of Lake Placid. This summer, she filled in for a vacationing staff member at our Albany office and did a great job. She will now be stationed at our headquarters in Essex County.”
Among other duties, the job entails keeping tabs on state and federal agencies and policies affecting the park, while also directing research efforts on private land-use, water-pollution prevention, and public land acquisitions according to an announcement by the Adirondack Council.

Buckley will join the staff on December 1 and work with Davis until the end of the year. Buckley was chosen from a field of 50 candidates from across the United States, who formally applied for the position.

She is a 2010 graduate (cum laude) of Vermont Law School and a 2005 graduate of the State University of New York at Plattsburgh. Her work experience includes the Upper Valley Land Trust, Hanover, N.H.; White River Partnership, Royalton, Vt.; Squaw Valley Lodge, Olympic Valley, Calif.; the Village of Lake Placid and the NYS Department of Health. She is also a skier, rock climber, ice climber and competitive runner.

Both of Buckley’s parents have served in local government in the Adirondacks.

Current Director of Conservation John Davis will work with Buckley until January 2011, when he will begin a new conservation project aimed at improving the wildlife habitat connections between the Atlantic, Appalachian and Adirondack landscapes.