APA executive director announces retirement
RAY BROOK — Terry Martino, the Adirondack Park Agency’s executive director for the past 12 years, is retiring.
Martino announced her retirement last Friday during the agency’s monthly board meeting. She’ll officially retire on Feb. 22, according to APA Public Information Officer Keith McKeever, and there’s no one lined up to replace her position yet.
APA Chair John Ernst, whose position was left vacant for more than two years before he joined the agency last October, said in a statement that the agency is “working closely” with Gov. Kathy Hochul’s administration to find someone to fill Martino’s shoes.
“Executive Director Martino’s commitment to the APA is deeply woven in a body of work that included historic state land actions and some of the most complicated and contested private land projects to come before this board,” he said. “Through it all, Terry managed this agency with professionalism and integrity.”
Martino worked with the Saranac Lake-based Adirondack North Country Association for more than 20 years before joining the APA in 2009, serving as ANCA’s executive director for most of that time.
During her time with ANCA, Martino advocated for the preservation of the Adirondack Scenic Railroad as director of the Adirondack Railway Preservation Society, and she’s served on the state Department of Transportation’s Scenic Byways Advisory Board since 1992, according to a press release from the APA. She was also part of the “All-America City” delegation that traveled to the U.S. Capitol and met then-Vice President Al Gore after Saranac Lake was recognized as an All-America City in 1998.
With the loss of Martino, the APA recently gained a new hire. Elizabethtown-based green group Adirondack Council in a Jan. 10 press release said that the council’s former vice president for conservation, Megan Phillips, is the APA’s new deputy director for planning.