PINKHAM NOTCH — Effective Feb. 1, the 136-year-old Appalachian Mountain Club will welcome a new president.
John D. Judge, 44, of Boston replaces Andy Falender, a Harvard Business School graduate and past executive director of the New England Conservatory of Music from 1975 to 1988 who has led the AMC since 1988.
Falender is credited with increasing AMC membership, conservation advocacy programs, youth programs, and improving the organization’s financial solvency by turning in balanced budgets all 23 years of his tenure.
Following a nine-month nationwide search by an AMC selection committee, the announcement of Judge’s appointment was made Jan. 5 by Jackson resident Laurie Gabriel, chair of AMC’s board of directors.
“With his leadership background, experience and passion, John is a great fit for us,” said Gabriel, a Mount Washington Valley native whose parents once owned Camp Waukeela in Eaton and who is a Kennett High graduate.
“He’s also a great guy,” said Gabriel, adding, “As part of the leadership search, we had a test in the process where a few of us took him on a hike and he passed that test with flying colors. We felt that was an important part of the process, because we feel that the next president of the AMC has to have outdoor credibility.”
Vision 2020
Judge will become the fourth chief executive in the AMC’s history.
He will be tasked with leading the AMC into a decade of growth and new objectives as outlined under the club’s four-pronged Vision 2020.
Those objectives include:
* Growing AMC’s membership from its current level of 100,000 members, advocates, and supporters to 500,000.
* Increase programs to involve more children in the outdoors.
* Lead regional action on trails, land protection and engaging youth in conservation.
* Broaden the impact of AMC’s Maine Woods Initiative in the 100-Mile Wilderness region.
“I am energized by the challenges AMC has committed to taking on over the next decade,” said Judge in a prepared statement. “Attracting 500,000 constituents, helping 500,000 kids experience wild places, fulfilling our vision for the Maine Woods Initiative, and engaging more people in our conservation and trail stewardship efforts is a tall order, but an exciting one. I am looking forward to using my experience in building partnerships to increase the impact of AMC in the region.”
Diverse background
Judge joins AMC with extensive nonprofit and government leadership experience, having served in executive and senior development, finance, and marketing roles.
He holds a bachelor of arts in economics from Stonehill College and a master’s in public administration from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.
Judge serves on the boards of Northeastern University’s School of Public Policy and the Springfield Technical Community College Foundation. He co-founded the New Frontier Society of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, a non-partisan group that encourages young adult participation in public affairs.
He also served as state chair of the Massachusetts Commission on Community Service and Volunteerism from 2001 to 2004. Additionally, he served as a volunteer with scouting and other youth groups.
Judge is credited with transforming a financially troubled Greater Boston chapter of Habitat for Humanity into a top-performing urban affiliate.
Most recently, Judge served as chief development officer for the city of Springfield, Mass., where he oversaw projects with a collective value of hundreds of millions of dollars and set the city on a path of sustainable development, including the construction of the state’s largest solar field.
Judge founded and led Judge Co. LLC, focused on inner-city real estate development and construction.
As president, Judge will oversee the club, which has more than 100,000 members, advocates, and supporters in 12 chapters from Maine to Washington, D.C.
Both Falender and Gabriel praised Judge as he steps into the post held by Falender for the past 23 years.
“John possesses an extensive understanding of management issues as well as a commitment to our mission,” said Falender. “The diversity of his nonprofit experience will be extremely valuable as AMC takes on new initiatives. I look forward to working with him to ensure a smooth transition and continue the momentum we have created in support of AMC’s long-term strategic plan, Vision 2020.”
“We are excited about John’s experience, talent and passion for AMC’s mission, particularly in getting young people engaged with the outdoors,” said Gabriel. “We can’t think of anyone we would rather have leading AMC as we work to broaden and diversify our constituents, help more kids and families get outdoors, and expand our role as a conservation leader in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions.”
About the AMC
Headquartered in Boston, the AMC advocates for the protection, enjoyment, and understanding of the mountains, forests, waters and trails in the region; offers over 8,000 outdoor trips each year; maintains over 1,500 miles of hiking trails; and hosts over 150,000 overnight guest visits at its huts and lodges.
AMC operates a nearby system of trail-side huts for hikers in the White Mountains. Eight huts are located along a 56-mile-long stretch of the Appalachian Trail from Carter Notch in the East to Franconia Notch in the west. The huts offer meals, lodging and educational opportunities and are open to the public. AMC also operates shelters, camps and roadside lodges, and provides training in outdoor skills.
Over the last eight years, it has purchased and conserved 66,500 acres of land in Maine’s 100-Mile Wilderness region used for outdoor recreation, education and sustainable forestry, where AMC manages over 90 miles of hiking and cross-country ski trails and three wilderness lodges open to use by the public.
For more information, contact www.outdoors.org or call 466-2727.
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Q A with John Judge
BOSTON — In an interview Jan. 12, Judge outlined some of his goals as he prepared to step into his new post at the head of the AMC.
Q: What excites you about your new position and why did you seek it out?
John Judge: For me, when I saw the AMC posting, it brought together my love for the outdoors, along with what I did in Springfield regarding sustainability and the conservation of fuels for nonprofits. So, it brought together those two worlds for me.
Throughout my professional life, I have been working together with different organizations — whether it be scouting, the Boston Housing Authority, the Boston Public Library where I volunteered for six years, and creating leadership programs at the JFK Library, including a mentoring program for young women aged 12 to 16 — so for me one of the biggest pieces was the draw of the 2020 Vision to get kids excited about the outdoors.
Q: Given the hold that the use of technology has on young people these days, how do you propose to get them into the Great Outdoors, away from their computers?
* John Judge: In an age of kids being pulled inside into the digital world, we will be pushing for ways to power down their equipment inside and power up to experience the outside.
We want to get across the idea that Saturday is a great time to get outside and explore.
That will help us, too, as an organization. We remind people that our organization was founded in 1876, and that it is as relevant today as it was then. We were one of the groups that helped found the White Mountain National Forest [following the destruction caused by indiscriminate logging, the AMC played a key role in advocating passage of the Weeks Act by Congress in 1911, which allowed for the creation of eastern forests, including the WMNF in 1918].
So, for us to continue to grow our programs and make sure we reach out to people in the communities is important. A recent McKinsey [Global Institute] study says that by 2050, 70 percent of the world’s population will be living in urban areas.
So for us in the East, we have anywhere from 55 to 70 million people from northern Maine and New Hampshire down to Washington D.C. that will continue to live in these affluent cities.
We have to figure out how to connect sheer transportation in terms of public access, how do people get here, but also to get them to connect with experiences closer to home to create outdoor citizenship for folks of all ages and to get them active in the outdoors.
Q: How can you reach people in this computerized age to get them outdoors?
John Judge: How to connect is something we talk about five times a day.
Certainly one of the creative ways for us to connect is using technology, reaching out through social networking. we currently have 15,000 fans or so on our Facebook page; the task is how to get to 150,000.
So, that connection is important, and so is our ability to create dynamic collaborations. It’s a watchword for the future, not only to be sustainable but to have dynamic collaborations to help us reach more and more people.
Q: How would you describe your new task in achieving the goals of 2020?
John Judge: My passion is to get people outdoors, whether taking a canoe trip or hiking up Madison or to any of our other huts.
Q: How would you rate the health of the organization as AMC president Andy Falender steps down?
John Judge: We are at an enviable spot to be and we have so much to be thankful for. We are at a very unique launch pad to achieve our 2020 goals. We need to get us to the next level. Andy has brought us to this point.
Andy is an amazing leader; he’s somebody who has taken this organization to a new level of success. The solid finances we now have; our programs, the Highland Center and the Maine Woods Initiative. It’s a phenomenal legacy. The culture of what this organization is today is thanks in large part to Andy’s leadership and ability to get many stakeholders behind the mission and moving it forward.
Q: Since the outdoors recreation explosion that started in the ’60s, is there a fear of ‘loving it to death’ when it comes to the mountains?
John Judge: It’s a challenge for us all. We need to not only lower our carbon footprint as an organization, but also individually. Our goal is to lower our carbon footprint by 80 percent by 2050. Public transportation, shared transportation to activities [all are part of that].
Q: Please talk about the AMC’s role as an advocate for the environment, given the challenges of the Northern Pass, budgetary government constraints regarding the forest service and other issues.
John Judge: We just think the value of our public lands is irreplaceable. Six million annually come to the White Mountains, supporting the local economy. [As for the Northern Pass], we think frankly the application sent in for the Northern Pass was not sufficient. They did not address a lot of the key things they should have and did not research alternatives to what they are proposing.
An Appalachian Mountain Club maintenance crew works to peel bark off of pine tree that will be transformed into a natural jungle gym for youngsters at the club’s Highland Center in Crawford Notch Thursday. The tree will be part of a larger play area that also has walls and stairs made from Redstone granite. The crew includes: Charles Muller, foreground, Chris Hyman, left, Michael Wejchert, sitting on limb, and Tristian Williams, upper right. (JAMIE GEMMITI PHOTO)