Attracting diversity, be it ethnic, cultural, religious, of sexual orientation, or ability, will benefit our economy. Furthermore, it will broaden the base of people who care for the Adirondacks and are willing to advocate for air pollution regulation, reduced road salt usage, more DEC rangers and other useful initiatives.

About five years ago, Pete Nelson, Willie Janeway, Paul Hai, and Martha Swan founded the Adirondack Diversity Initiative. It grew out of a 2014 Newcomb Adirondack Interpretive Center symposium titled “Toward a More Diverse Adirondacks” that came up with two guiding principles: the Adirondacks should be welcoming to and inclusive of everyone and relevant to and supported by an increasingly diverse New York.

“We want the Adirondacks to be a place that matters, a climate haven where wildlands that can be cherished by all,” said Nelson, “a place for recreation, to move to and to live in for a host of reasons. We need to embrace differences in all directions and value everyone, including people here in the park who are not valued now. We don’t have that view of the park; yet, that’s our goal. I think it’s fair and delightful to say that we’ve hired an expert. We look forward to learning with her where we go from here.”

Since 2014, ADI has been led by a volunteer team representing individuals and organizations. They have organizing workshops and other events, developing strategies to achieve their objectives. With the help of the governor’s office, a $250,000 Environmental Protection Fund grant, and the Adirondack North Country Association’s organizational support, they hired their first director, Nicole Hylton-Patterson, a diversity professional based in the Bronx.

Hylton-Patterson was born in Trench Town, a tough inner-city neighborhood of Kingston, Jamaica. A gifted-child program allowed her to attend school in Norway. She lived on a small rural island off the coast, commuting up to two hours each way to school on the mainland. She says that the ADI job gives her the opportunity to return to a rural region with four seasons and to work on breaking the bonds of poverty.

“Addressing diversity and inclusion isn’t challenging,” said Hylton-Patterson. “Poverty is challenging, destitution is challenging, being a slave to drug addiction is challenging, being locked up like an animal years over years is challenging. This is an opportunity that’s easy to understand when you’ve come from the kind of poverty in a place like Trench Town. We had to get up at 5 to catch a bus to school. There was a drug den once next door. When we’d hear the gunshots, my mother would come in and drag us off the beds and make us lie on the floor until it stopped. When I got out at 5 a.m., there would be bodies between me and the road that I had to go up to get the bus. I had to step over the bodies because the police hadn’t come yet. That’s a challenge.”

Hylton-Patterson holds a master’s degree in Pan-American Studies from Syracuse University, a master’s degree in Industrial and Professional Psychology from the Chicago School of Professional Psychology and a bachelor’s degree in African & African-American Studies and Philosophy from Mount Holyoke College. She is working on a PhD in Afro-LGBTQI-Justice from Arizona University. She has led race and gender, justice and diversity programs in Arizona, Elmira and Syracuse and is leaving her position as acting director of the Mary T. Clark Center for Religion and Social Justice at Manhattanville College to take up her role here.

“This effort is like a multi-colored snowball,” said Janeway. “It started with a few people saying we got some issues. If this park is not welcoming to everybody, then people won’t be coming and that’s not good economically. That little snowball started by a couple of people has just rolled and gotten bigger and bigger. I’m excited that we’re going from level one to level three in terms of making the Adirondacks more welcoming. It will take advocacy, education and training.”

“I think Nicky is right on the money with something she is already saying – that ‘the human diversity of the Adirondacks should be as rich as its biodiversity,'” said Nelson. “For me, a person who advocates for wilderness and richer, healthier, more diverse communities – those things go together. There’s no question in my mind that the significance of the Adirondacks as an ecological treasure is tied to the communities here and how they grow and thrive in a diverse world.”

“Diversity, equity and inclusion – words I sometimes hate because they do not define what we do,” said Hylton-Patterson. “Sometimes we search for diversity when it’s right here, and when you don’t attend to people’s lived realities, you miss the point. We have to find our deeper connection and work from there. We have to find our shared beauty and humanity. So many don’t get the psychic piece. How can you believe in a shared humanity if you believe that many of us are not human? This is a very challenging space!

“There are so many people right here who are hungry. They’re desperate. They are strung out or addicted to some substance. They don’t see a future. Diversity is first about the diverse people already here. We’re not paying attention to them.”

Indeed, our society is becoming more polarized. People of different economic, educational, political, religious and social status are not talking with each other, so they are not discovering shared aspirations and working toward achieving them. This can become an impediment to the region and people achieving success.

Hylton-Patterson has three priorities for the next six months: economics, education and recreation – priorities crafted by the core team of ANCA and the ADI board. She brings innovation and experience working in this area over the past 20 years. She will focus on training frontline tourism staff, the people whom visitors often meet initially: hotel and restaurant reservation and serving staff, Whiteface lift attendants, mountain stewards and retail salespeople. She will work with tourism agency folk in cities such as New York to attract diverse populations to our region, in agencies such as the Adaptive Climbing Group, Black Outdoors and Take Me Out. Her goal is to get the more people of diversity who love the outdoors to spend their money here. She also hopes to work with real estate and relocation professionals and our education and health communities to attract young people and young families to the region.

“Our region is dying,” she said, “Young people are leaving. Our communities need help.”

Hylton-Patterson said most new New York state residents (people more diverse than ever from an increasingly interconnected world) settle in urban centers. We can help them see this part of New York as open to them, too. Most know more about Montreal than the Adirondacks. We want to educate them about the Adirondacks, invite them to consider living here. Education and awareness are needed at both ends. She hopes for a network of partner agencies to help her open doors to isolated people living here. She hopes to help many expand their services to welcome all.

“I think Nicky’s phenomenal,” said Rocci Aguirre, director of conservation at the Adirondack Council and member of the ADI, “She’s exactly what the Adirondacks needs: a welcome voice providing a fresh perspective.”