KEENE, N.Y. – The Adirondack Land Trust welcomes Land Protection Manager Bill Martin, Intern for the Future of the Adirondacks Sophie Williams, and Conservation Operations Specialist Joe Scrimenti to its team of professional staff.
Land protection
As land protection manager, Martin oversees land acquisition and conservation easement transactions. He has lifelong ties to the Adirondacks, from childhood summers in the southern Adirondacks to visiting family in Saranac Lake as a young adult. Martin also earned a bachelor’s degree in natural resource management from Paul Smith’s College. He has worked for The Nature Conservancy in the Adirondacks and Wyoming and was most recently with the Watershed Agricultural Council working with drinking water conservation in the New York City watershed.
“I’m so grateful to be with the land trust to support the people and places that have helped shape my life,” Martin says. “The Adirondacks are full of contrasts and complexities, and our shared love for the land is where we all find common ground. I’m inspired to find ways our land protection strategies and what people value about this place can work together.”
Additional capacity for conservation programs
The Adirondack Land Trust has added a conservation operations specialist position to increase the capacity and efficiency of its conservation team. This new role was made possible by leveraging private donations to secure an $80,000 grant over two years from the New York State Conservation Partnership Program (NYSCPP). NYSCPP is administered by the Land Trust Alliance New York Program and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation with funding from the New York State Environmental Protection Fund.
Joe Scrimenti steps into this role to coordinate conservation operations across land protection, stewardship, and farmland preservation initiatives. Scrimenti joined the Adirondack Land Trust in 2022 as the office administrator. He has previously worked in stewardship, interpretation, and education roles at Maine Coast Heritage Trust, Yosemite Conservancy, Asbury Woods Nature Center in Pennsylvania, and 350Vermont.
Internship program
Williams’s internship, which extends to early October, focuses on a broad scan of accessible wildland trails across the Adirondacks. In addition to providing data to help the Adirondack Land Trust refine its land protection evaluation process going forward, Williams’s final report will be the first of its kind to document and describe Adirondack trails that are promoted as being accessible for people with disabilities.
Williams studies at the University of Oxford in England, where she is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in geography. Her academic focus includes geographic information systems, science communication, and ecological data analysis.
“Having grown up hiking, I’ve come to appreciate how outdoor experiences foster connections to the natural world,” Williams says. “I’m thrilled to join a team that embraces a community- and place-based approach to protecting this incredible landscape.”
The Adirondack Land Trust works to forever conserve the forests, farmlands, waters and wild places that advance the quality of life in our communities and the ecological integrity of the Adirondacks.
Photos by Nancie Battaglia and Lisa J. Godfrey (3)