AdkAction names Sawyer Cresap new executive director

Capital Region native has organized Adirondack initiatives 

Staff report

AdkAction on Wednesday named Sawyer Cresap to be the nonprofit advocacy organization’s new executive director.  

Cresap, who grew up in the Capital Region, has worked as an Adirondack wilderness guide, as the stewardship and volunteer coordinator at the Mohawk Hudson Land Conservancy in Albany and at the Blue Mountain Center.

“With a clear passion for advocating for communities in the Adirondacks… Ms. Cresap is the ideal leader to expand AdkAction’s collaborative projects and positive impacts across the park,” Board Chair Steve Maikowski said in a statement.

Cresap will fill the spot vacated by Brittany Christenson, who departed as the organization’s first executive director earlier this year. AdkAction works on an array of issues in the Adirondacks, reducing food insecurity, expanding broadband access, protecting pollinator habitats, promoting local arts and battling road salt pollution.

Cresap, who is completing a Masters of Environmental Management at Yale University, in her previous positions has organized conservation and community initiatives and managed volunteers and staff. She graduated from Syracuse University and has hiked both the Appalachian Trail and Northville Placid Trail. 

“I am thrilled to help support, lead, and represent AdkAction, an extraordinary organization attending to both parts of the Adirondacks’ great conservation experiment: thriving communities and healthy ecosystems,” Cresap said in a statement.