The Adirondack Rail Trail Association (ARTA) has announced the appointment of Brian Woods as its Executive Director. Brian comes to ARTA from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute of Troy, NY where he served as Manager of Student Services from June 2016. While there, Brian served on RPI’s Administrative Leadership Team and developed external partners and employer relations.

Brian is passionate about making the outdoors universally accessible and building community around the outdoors. His leadership and project management skills will help ARTA form a broad coalition of supporters to let the trail reach its potential. His task at ARTA will be to help the “Trail Towns” along the rail-trail corridor and their businesses collaborate and coordinate the public outreach needed to achieve the corridor’s
potential. That potential is, based on a study done by the Rails to Trails Conservancy, to attract over 250,000 new summer visitors to the trail, visitors who will spend over $20 million locally.

Winter visitors will also dramatically increase local spending as snowmobilers can now easily reach the Tri-lakes from points north, west, and south. Brian was a Division I athlete and now as an age-group runner, triathlete, and Nordic skier. He and his wife, Emily Layden, a writer and published author, live in Lake Placid.

For more information, email info@AdirondackRailTrail.org.

In other news: Trail Towns update planned for Adirondack Rail Trail, meeting set for Oct. 12 in Saranac Lake

Photo at top: Brian Woods. Photo provided by ARTA.