North Creek, NY – Adirondack Wild: Friends of the Forest Preserve convenes its 11^th Annual Membership Meeting on Friday, September 24, 2021, at Tannery Pond Community Center in North Creek. The meeting begins with Adirondack Wild’s program report at 1 PM.

The meeting is free and open to the public. Advance registration is requested. Tannery Pond Community Center, located at 228 Main Street, North Creek, requires that face masks must be worn and social distancing practiced during the meeting.

At 1:30 pm the meeting features guest speakers Chad Dawson, an Adirondack Wild board member and former APA Member, and Andrea Hogan (pictured here), current APA Member and Town Supervisor of Johnsburg. Their focus will be on the current state of the Adirondack Park Agency at 50 Years (1971-2021) and reimagining the APA in the Next 50 Years.

Following the speakers, at 2:30 pm the 2021 Paul Schaefer Wilderness Award and the Wild Stewardship Award will be presented.

The Paul Schaefer Wilderness Award will be conveyed to retired Adirondack Park Agency natural resource planners and supervisors Walter (Walt) Linck and Richard (Rick) Weber. The Wild Stewardship Award will be presented to John Brown Lives! founder and executive director Martha Swan.

For more than 20 years, Linck and Weber steered the APA toward the protection and preservation of the natural resources of the Adirondack Park’s state lands, the Forest Preserve. Their high standards employed to enhance management plans, private land permits and wild land policies across the Park admirably reflects the legacy left by the 20^th century’s foremost Adirondack wilderness coalition leader Paul Schaefer (1908-1996).

Walt retired from the APA this past summer as Environmental Program Specialist in the Planning Division, focused on planning for the Forest Preserve. Prior to his career at the APA, Linck led wilderness canoe trips from his family’s tripping camp on Raquette Lake, earned his master’s in environmental science at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, and led the Audubon Expedition Institute as well as the Adirondack AmeriCorps program in Long Lake. Walt resides in Saranac Lake.

Rick Weber also graduated from SUNY ESF and earned a master’s degree from the University of Michigan’s School of Natural Resources. Rick retired from the APA this past summer as Deputy Director for Planning. Prior to coming to the APA, he worked at the LA Group for over 13 years in a variety of positions and was a National Park Planning Advisor to the Republic of Panama where he prepared a management plan for the largest biosphere reserve in Central America. Rick also resides in Saranac Lake.

This year’s Wild Stewardship Award will be presented to Martha Swan, founder and executive director of John Brown Lives!

Since 1999, Martha and JBL! have addressed civil rights, climate justice, human trafficking, immigrant rights, mass incarceration and voting rights.

JBL! has successfully placed the Adirondacks on the map as a moral as well as protected landscape.  Under Martha’s leadership, JBL! became the Friends group of John Brown Farm State Historic Site in North Elba. Thanks to JBL! countless people look to the Adirondack Park as a welcoming place to renew and revive social, moral, and environmental justice through education and action. Martha’s and JBL’s caring for moral landscape exemplify the highest standards of Park stewardship. Martha resides in Westport and teaches at the Newcomb Central School.

Adirondack Wild’s meeting concludes at 3:15 PM.  Advance registration is requested.  To register, please email Ken Rimany at krimany@adirondackwild.org.