After working for the Land Trust Alliance (LTA), where he helped to provide strategic guidance and support for more than 750 land trusts across a 32-state region, Kevin Case, 54, said he was looking “to sink my roots into one landscape. I began to feel like I was the coach on the sideline watching everyone else play. I wanted to get into the game.”
Based in Saratoga Springs, Case had a plethora of land-conservation skills, including raising funds for land acquisition, helping organizations gain accreditation, providing ongoing education on biodiversity and land-management practices, and working to ensure diversity in staffing and land visitation. Some of the organizations with which LTA works include the Open Space Institute, the Mohonk Preserve and the Wallkill Valley Land Trust, all of which have accreditation with the LTA parent organization.
Case learned about the executive director position at the Mohonk Preserve when veteran CEO Glenn Hoagland announced that he would be leaving last September. “I knew Glenn, and had great respect for him, and always admired the way he talked about the preserve – the breadth and quality of the work that they do here,” said Case.
After a six-month search and interview process, the directors at the Mohonk Preserve chose Case to lead them in January 2020. Less than three weeks before he was slated to move into his offices at the helm of the 8000-acre not-for-profit, the pandemic hit New York and forced a statewide shutdown of everything that was not considered an essential service.
Getting to know you
While parks were considered “essential,” the preserve decided to shut down due to health and safety concerns for staff and visitors. The decision, which was not without controversy, prevented Case from hitting the ground running. He admitted that it was personally frustrating for him. He had been “excited to get to know every part of the landscape, get to know the staff and daily operations – and then I’m doing Zoom meetings instead.”
He had also hoped that by April or shortly thereafter, he could have relocated to the region with his family. But when things began to reopen, the real-estate market in the Hudson Valley had taken off. Case is still looking for a place to live. “Do you know of a house?” he inquired with a laugh, noting that he has been commuting back and forth to work, often staying where he can for three days out of the week and then driving back to his home in Litchfield, Connecticut. He said that he’s anxious to move here and make the New Paltz area his permanent home.
While the house hunt continues, so does his learning curve of assuming the leadership of an institution that is steeped in tradition, lore, science and a love of the land that can be both private and communal, sacred and shared. Case had the opportunity to go on two carriage-road tours with Hoagland before he took the position. He began to develop a sense of the diversity within the landscape, which can move quickly from ridgelines to meadows to cliffs and sky lakes, talus slopes and riverbeds and pitch-pine forests.
“Not only is the landscape so rich and unique, but being able to join a team of staff and volunteers and a board that is so passionate and dedicated to this land is so exciting. I remember when I was first interviewed by the board and they asked me, ‘Who are our peers?’ And I said, ‘There are none.’ I could not think of another land trust that has such a robust education program, such a well-established conservation science background and ongoing initiatives, along with such an extensive system of carriage roads and trail networks. It’s not your average land trust that wants to protect open space. That’s an admirable goal, but the preserve is so much more.”
Million-dollar shortfall
Case is still learning. “After every meeting, I ask someone to ‘Take me to your favorite spot!” Every place along the ridge and foothills that he has visited has been “great,” he said. One of his first ventures was riding his bike from the Testimonial Gatehouse trailhead up to the Sky Top tower. “It was great: 30 minutes to get up and ten to get down!”
He said the he also enjoyed riding up “… Laurel Ledge and Humpty Dumpty, with those stunning views at Cope’s Lookout. That panoramic view from Spring Farm is breathtaking. There’s so much here.”
What does Case believe to be the greatest challenges the preserve is facing? “Revenue,” he said. “The preserve got hit very hard this year. We’re looking at a million-dollar shortfall.”
Due to the pandemic, the preserve had to forgo some of its largest annual fundraisers, like the 50-mile Rock the Ridge ultramarathon normally hosted every spring, as well as the annual gala and auction in New York City, plus summer camps and school outings. That’s not to mention the day-to-day revenue in visitor passes and rock-climbing passes and new memberships lost when the trails were closed down in spring during the health crisis. The federal Payroll Protection Program (PPE) “helped enormously, but we still had to furlough some employees and eliminate a few positions, which was really tough,” he said.
On the bright side, the public has shown an increasing interest and enjoyment in forays into nature and parks and preserves. This appreciation for and newfound or rekindled enjoyment of the benefits of being outdoors and walking, hiking, cycling and running has resulted in “a huge increase in membership and day passes, and with the weather cooperating, we’ve had record-breaking weekends almost every weekend this summer,” said Gretchen Reed, the organization’s communications and media coordinator.
As the science continues to show outdoor transmission of the virus to be very low, and people’s desire to immerse themselves in nature is growing exponentially, Case and Reed are helping to meet the demand by ramping up the number of trailhead assistants who can answer questions, point people in the right direction, and help them decide on what hike or area they want to visit. “Even when the West Trapps lot is full, you can walk less than a half-mile and all of a sudden, you find yourself alone or see the occasional person walking or jogging. It’s magic,” explained Reed. “You never feel like there are any crowds at the preserve.”
Because the Testimonial Gatehouse trailhead was opened in early summer during the pandemic crisis, the traditional grand opening was omitted. “We’re still hoping to do that,” said Reed, “but I think that it’s taking a while for people to know that it’s there and that we have ample parking [80 spots, including EV charging stations]. There’s almost always parking available there, even on a busy weekend.”
At national parks, Case said statistics show, 90 percent of the visitors stay within ten minutes of where they entered. As more people utilize the parks, the preserve is working to grow two of its longstanding initiatives. One is to honor loyal members with special times of the day that are only for them, like the 7 to 9 a.m. slots designated “mornings for members,” which Reed said have been “incredibly popular.” The preserve is also now extending hours for all visitors until 9 p.m. through September 21.
In addition, 3000 free monthly memberships were handed out to residents of Ulster County as part of the Healthy Ulster program, which Case wants to expand. “I got to be out there one day when our volunteers were handing out the free passes, and it was so great to see how excited people were to be able to utilize their new passes and enjoy the preserve.”
Inclusion and protection
Case kept coming back to his desire to bring more equity and inclusion among the preserve’s visitors and staff. “Whenever I’m out at the trailheads on the weekends, it’s so gratifying to see so many younger people out on the paths, as well as people from different cultures and backgrounds and ages.”
It’s not only a question of bringing more diversity to the land, but also making the experience inclusive. “I’d like to have more bilingual signage and maps at our trailheads,” he said, giving one example. “We want these lands to be relevant and serve as a retreat to as broad of a segment of our community as possible – and the Mohonk Preserve has been at the forefront of this, having passed an equity and diversity policy back in 2014.”
At the same time, Case, as the CEO, has to be intensely focused on protecting the integrity of the various ecosystems that make up this landscape and safeguarding their health and well-being. As global warming continues to heat up the planet, natural oases like the Mohonk Preserve are that much more critical. “Because of the ridge environment, we’re ranked high in terms of being a resilient landscape,” the executive director explained. “And adaptability. This is important when it comes to habitat protection and working toward ways of sequestering carbon, so that we’re reducing the amount that is released into the atmosphere.”
Just like in nature itself, there’s a balancing act that Case will be taking on.
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