Protect the Adirondacks lays groundwork for succession plan 

Posting for deputy director promises path to top job 

By Zachary Matson

Protect the Adirondacks, a key nonprofit in Adirondack advocacy, is in the market for a new deputy director with a line on replacing Peter Bauer as the organization’s top leader.  

Protect on Monday listed the new deputy director position, outlining responsibilities across the organization’s legal, policy and scientific programs and seeking applications by Dec. 9. 

The new hire could be well positioned to replace Bauer, 60, who has served as the organization’s executive director since 2012 as an assertive voice on many Adirondack conservation and management issues.

Bauer in an interview Monday said there was no timeline for a leadership transition and that timing would come down to the experience and skills of the person hired for the position. He said he hoped noting the potential promotion to executive director would deepen the candidate pool for deputy.

“We have no schedule for that but we are doing some succession planning,” Bauer said. “A lot of the transition and timing will depend on the individual we hire and how everything works out over the next year.”

Compared to some other groups in the park, Protect has a small staff and budget. Bauer works as executive director; Chris Amato, a former attorney in the state Department of Environmental Conservation, joined as conservation director in August; a development position has been vacant since the spring. It has a 21-member board of directors.

The organization spent around $330,000 from July 2020 through June 2021, according to the nonprofit’s most recent tax filing. Protect listed $1.65 million in total assets at the time. Bauer, who has worked in the Adirondacks for three decades, earned a salary of about $107,000, according to the tax record.

The organization stakes out positions focused on state management of the Adirondack Park, including private development, public land classification, potential land acquisition and changes to regulations and state laws. Protect also managed the long running Adirondack Lake Assessment Program, a citizen water monitoring program that assesses conditions on 75 lakes around the park. Bauer said he was working to update a report on park demographics in light of new census data. 

Protect has also carved out a role as a prominent litigator on Article 14 and other Adirondack issues, winning a recent case to bar construction of certain snowmobile trails on state land.    

“We staked out a position as a tenacious defender of the park by using legal action,” Bauer said.

The deputy director’s job duties would include monitoring state policy developments, advocating Protect’s conservation goals, conducting field work and other research, organizing public education programs, managing legal actions and providing “independent public oversight” of DEC and Adirondack Park Agency management of the park.

“We are looking for someone who can continue to take the organization forward,” Bauer said.