Forum explores future of tech innovation in the Adirondacks

Tech leaders share insights as to how remote jobs can revitalize the Adirondack region

By Tim Rowland

More than 60 people working in technology met in Lake Placid last week to discuss how fostering a network of remote workers could interrupt some troublesome Adirondack trends including declining population, lower school enrollments and the perception among young people that they have to leave the park to get ahead.

Tech could also help bolster and diversify the tourism-centric Adirondack economy, advocates say, while adding new constituencies that can be another voice for the park and its people.

Sponsored by the Adirondack Innovation Initiative (A2I), an arm of the Adirondack Foundation, attendees included engineers and software developers for some of the world’s largest corporations who have carved out a home in the mountains, as well as owners of tech start-ups and workers in tech-adjacent areas such as graphic design.

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While tech workers are often associated with video games and dark basements, they are also drawn to mountain biking and ski slopes. The A2I initiative has been studying other outdoors-oriented regions where tech has flourished, and seeing what elements could be applied to the Adirondacks. 

And with the mines and mills of the 20th century long gone and the prisons that replaced them disappearing fast, technology — which can be learned without the ponderous investment in a four-year college education — is a logical option for local kids graduating high school. 

Tech workers share their experiences being in the Adirondacks

The Lake Placid forum featured a panel discussing their experiences with Adirondack tech. Panelists represented workers who have discovered the Adirondacks for the first time, and “boomerangs” who were born in the Adirondacks, left and returned once the opportunity for remote work presented itself.

Audience members were also encouraged to expand on opportunities that exist, and obstacles that need to be removed. Beyond that, it was a chance for tech workers to network and meet others with shared experiences.

Filipson said A2I’s first job has been to find out how much of a force the Adirondack tech sector already represents. Almost by definition they tend to be hard to coax out of the woodwork, because they do not assemble in any one place, belong to any one group or show up in any one labor statistic. 

That doesn’t necessarily mean they’re hard to find, though, Filipson said. But until the movement gains critical mass, it means locating remote workers one by one and inviting them into the fold. While finding and meeting with tech workers individually has been methodical, it has also been successful, and early returns indicate these lone tech actors may be more numerous than has been assumed.

In its first six months the group has grown from a handful to more than 100, Filipson said. The mission of this tech assemblage is to provide a mutual support network for fellow tech workers, while preaching the Adirondack gospel to other outdoors enthusiasts in the tech world.

“After a stressful Zoom meeting I can walk outside and look at the mountains,” said Alyona Smokvin, assistant vice president of customer operations at insurance-data company meshVI. “In big cities you can’t disconnect  like that.” Smokvin and her partner had lived down south, but she missed the snows of her native Ukraine. When she mentioned this to her partner “he said, ‘I know a place,’” Smokvin said.

Building a critical mass

A2I advocates hope once more remote workers know about the place they will create a conducive tech environment in the same vein as tech enclaves that have sprouted up in Bend, Ore., and Jackson, Wyo. 

Or, natives who left for the bright lights of the city might decide that the peace and quiet of the park wasn’t so bad after all.

Ryan Hutton, a scaled operations and customer success leader at Google, returned to his home of Chestertown to continue his career, a message he wants young people to hear.

“I would love this next generation to know that you can stay right here, work in an interesting job, have a good career and keep their Adirondack lifestyle,” he said. “(Tech) can be really equitable and open, and not just to families that can afford college.” 

There are other problems to solve, though; a common quip is that all a remote worker needs to set up shop is an internet connection and a roof. But both of these — adequate broadband and affordable housing — aren’t a given in the park.

But perhaps the bigger challenge, and one A2I is primed to solve, is a pervading uncertainty that — especially for an urbanite — living and working in the wilderness is something they can pull off.

“One thing I’m really excited about is just raising the awareness that there are people doing this,” said Peter Newcomb, a software engineer at Walmart Global Tech. “We don’t feel alone and like, ‘All right, I’m sick of New York City.’ Go buy a house out in the woods and hope everything works out. Having the awareness that other people are doing it too makes it a little easier.”