Board Member Detail

Frank Hutchings

Founding President

In Memorium

Frank was the founding President of API. He was a marketing executive from Rochester and brought his considerable talent to establishing the API. Frank had a summer home in Paul Smiths and was very involved with the Paul Smith’s College Board.

Frank Pine

President

Frank is a retired ecologist from a Maryland consulting firm. Frank is involved in several Adirondack organizations and is an avid photographer. Frank and his wife Lorraine have a summer home in Long Lake and live in Baltimore. He has been on the API Board for over 15 years.

Bill Farber

Vice President

Robert Cummings

Treasurer

Robert Cummings (Treasurer) is a former international banker and retired educational consultant. He and his wife Poppy are fourth generation and life-long members of the Tahawus Club in Newcomb where they have lived since 2019 when he joined the API board.

Board Line 1

Board Line 2

Stuart Angert

Trustee

Mr. Angert is the founder, and served as Chief Executive Officer of Remarketing Services of America, Inc.. He serves on several boards of trustee and director, focused primarily on healthcare and academia, and as Chairman of the Independent Health Foundation. He was appointed as a Commissioner for the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, Niagara District. Angert earned his BA from Colgate University and MBA from the Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania.

Robert Calihan

Trustee

Rob owns Callihan Law in Rochester, a specialized firm.

James C. Dawson

Trustee

Jim is a Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus, Earth and Environmental Science, State University of New York, College at Plattsburgh. He has been involved with educational and natural resources work on the Adirondacks and Lake Champlain for over fifty years. Among his many current and past commitments to the local community, he currently serves as a Trustee, Paul Smith’s College; as a Director, Adirondack Research Consortium; as a Director Ex Officio (as a co-founder and first Board Chair), Adirondack Land Trust; as a Director, Protect the Adirondacks and as a member of the Advisory Board, Adirondack Park Institute. He also serves on the NYSDEC Lands and Forests Forest Preserve Advisory Committee; on the Lake Champlain Management Conference New York Citizens’ Advisory Committee and on the NYS Geological Mapping Advisory Committee He is a widower who lives in Plattsburgh, NY where he enjoys classical music and opera (mostly on CD), and reading Victorian novels and history. Jim is was born and raised in Toronto, Canada; earned BA (1965) and MS (1967) degrees in geology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and a PhD in geology, with minors in geophysics and oceanography, at the University of Wisconsin, Madison (1970).

Mike German

Trustee

Mike has served on the API Board for over 20 years. He loves the Adirondacks and hiking. Mike is retired from NYSEG and in retirement started his own energy business, Corning Gas. Mike is past president of the Board. He and his wife Susan live in Connecticut.

Paul Hai

Trustee

Paul is a co-director of the SUNY ESF’s Newcomb campus.

Mark Leta

Trustee

Mark is a retiree from NYSEG and is now working for Northline Utilities, an energy utility related business successful in the Adirondacks. He and his wife Debbie live in Peru. Mark is also a Trustee for Clinton CC, and is a Clinton County IDA Board Member

Col. Robert "Bob"
C. Lilly

Trustee

Bob is a retired Colonel from the US Air Force. In retirement he has been very involved in activities involving Newcomb and Essex County. He is a long time Board Member and for a time was Executive Director of API.

Chuck Monzeglio

Chuck owns a construction business in Connecticut. He was a longtime friend of our founding President Frank Hutchins.

BoardLine 3

Melany Putman

Trustee

Elizabeth "Liz" Thorndike

Elizabeth “Liz” Thorndike has been a practitioner in the public policy/land use planning fields and the nonprofit sector from 1973 to the present.
She served as founder and executive director of Rochester’s Center for Environmental Information (now renamed Genesee River Watch) from 1973-2007; adjunct faculty at Cornell University for 17 years and member of the Dean’s Advisory Council for the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
She has served in public service appointments for 44 years from 1973-2017, nominated under six New York State governors, confirmed by
NYS Senate: Adirondack Park Agency where she chaired the Park Policy and Planning committee; New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) where she chaired the committee with oversight of the West Valley nuclear waste facility; also a member of Gov. Mario Cuomo’s Environmental Advisory Board.

Having served on numerous nonprofit boards and advisories, including Cayuga Lake Watershed Network, Finger Lakes Land Trust, Monroe County Environmental Management Council, Girl Scouts, she is currently a board member of Adirondack Park Institute, Adirondack Research Consortium (past president) and Paul Smiths College.

She holds degrees from Stanford, Harvard and Cornell in history, education and natural resource policy.

She and her late husband,Edward, are parents of three, grand parents of five and great grandparents of four.

Related Thorndike publications:
1997-98. “The Adirondack Park in the 21st Century: Part I. Proposals for a Research and Policy Agenda; Part II. “Strategies for Implementing a ‘Research-to-Inform Policy’ Agenda”. Adirondack Journal of Environmental
Studies, Vol.4, No. 2 and Vol. 5, No. 1.

1999. “New York State’s ‘Forever Wild’ Adirondack Park: Where Wilderness Preservation Began”, International Journal of Wilderness, Vol. 5, April.

2009. “Envisioning the Future of Wilderness: Public Demands and Private Lands”.
Porter, Erickson and Whaley, The Great Experiment in Conservation, Syracuse University Press.

Trustee

Troy Trombley

Trustee

A North Country native who graduated from Beekmantown High School and received Bachelors Degree in Business Management from SUNY Plattsburgh, Troy has been working at NYSEG for 5 years. Originally hired as a Natural Gas Marketing professional, he now works with the Government and Community Relations group. Troy covers the North Country Territory. Troy and his wife Taylor have a 4 year old daughter Charlotte. In his free time he loves to golf, go on long trail walks, and enjoy activities on beautiful Lake Champlain.