About Us

 

Defined by our vision of
a more accessible Adirondack region … for everyone.

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Our Missions

Children with disabilities fishing in the Adirondack region
  • To promote organizations that are accessible, in their physical locations, websites and social media presences, and direct tourists who rely on accessibility accomodations, to those organizations.

Our Missions

  • To provide people with disabilities with a single, reliable resource for choosing were to visit, dine, shop, stay, and play, by virtue of the assurance that reasonable accomodations for their disabilities will be provided, actively and/or passively, when they choose to travel, live and/or work within the Adirondack region.

 

  • To provide educational and assessment resources to organizations within the Adirondack region, in order to assist them in becomming accessible to people with disabilities through their physical locations, websites and social media presences.

 

  • To vigourously advocate for organizations to serve their entire community, including people with disabilities, through their physical locations, websites and social media presences.

What We Do

Resources

Providing reliable informational resources to people with disabilities who live, work, visit and play in the Adirondack region. By only including accessible locations, websites and social media pages in our website our users can be assured that they can plan their trip with accessibility in mind and that the accomodations they need will be available to them.

Education

Many locations want to be accessible for various reasons and some don’t know where to start. A significant part of our mission is to provide education to businesses and municipalities within the Adirondack region on what accessibility means and what standards they are required to comply with for their physical locations, websites and social media pages.

Awareness

When envisioning people with disabilities most think of wheelchairs and assisted mobility. However, there are disabilities that are all too often overlooked such as color blindness, cataracts, and carpal tunnel syndrome. We provide public awareness in the hope that more people will consider how their organizations can better serve people with disabilities.

Advocacy

Our work advocates for people with disabilities by encouraging best accessibility practices by businesses, municipalites and other Adirondack organizations.

Promotion

By promoting accessible locations, websites and social media pages we bring greater marketing exposure to Adirondack businesses that support the ideals of ensuring accessibility for everyone.

Our Team

Nick Friedman President Executive Director

Nick Friedman

President and
Executive Director

Passionate about rights for people with disabilities, Nick has been a website developer and Internet marketer for over 25 years. Leveraging this experience, and the knowledge gained from having met many hundreds of business owners during his career, he is well suited to bring his business and leadership skills, contacts and resources to move our vision forward.
Summer Downing Vice President

Summer Downing

Vice President and
Treasurer

As a lifelong resident of the Adirondack region, Summer graduated from Adirondack Community College (now SUNY Adirondack), Cum Laude, with an AS in Business and from Excelsior College, Magna Cum Laude, with a BS in business. Summer has worked in the banking and business management fields and is an Officer and member of several committees in a political organization. She is also a musician and avid outdoorswoman.
Deborah Sabin Secretary

Deborah Sabin, Esq.

Secretary to the Board and
General Counsel

As a practicing attorney with over 40 years as an attorney admitted to the New York State Bar Association and Federal Bar Association, including 30 years service as a New York State Administrative Law Judge/Counsel and 13 Years as an Arbitrator, Judge Sabin provides unique insight into the legalities associated with ADA and ADA/WCAG compliance.
Bill Miller, Board Member of Accessible Adirondack Tourism

William Miller

Board Member

William Miller is the executive director of Tri-Lakes Center for Independent Living (‘TLCIL’). William holds a BA in Psychology from SUNY-Potsdam, and an MSLIS from University at Buffalo. Prior to his position at TLCIL, William worked as a psychiatric rehabilitative case worker, and worked in independent living as a disability rights advocate.
Norman Karp

Norman Karp

Board Member

Norman is a certified SSA Benefits Planner and Advisor, an Advanced ADA Trainer, and an Assistive Technology Specialist. He provides people with disabilities the information they need as they enter (or re-enter) into the workforce. As a resident of the Adirondacks for over 20 years, and as an individual who is blind, he understands the importance of being able to travel, and choose locations, and activities that are accessible and enjoyable.
Young children sitting in lawn chairs next to pool
Nicks Little Brother

Our Story

The story of Accessible Adirondack Tourism actually began many years ago. Nick’s younger brother was disabled and his experiences in traveling with a sibling with a disabilitity were profound. Later, when Nick (our President and Executive Director) chose a career as a website developer and screen reader technology was in its infancy, he would develop websites in ways that his brother could interact with more easily – long before website accessiblity was even in our nomenclature.

Last year, when conversing with Bill Miller, Executive Director of Tri-Lakes Center for Independent Living in Saranac Lake, Bill asked for accessible locations to be listed within their website. At that moment, Nick experienced an epiphany, realizing the importance and potential of a website dedicated solely to accessible tourism, not just for one area of the Adirondacks, but for the entire Adirondack region.

The idea quickly grew as part of Nick’s work is to educate businesses on accessibility with regard to websites and he knew that this concept would not result in a business enterprise, but a nonprofit that would be able to serve the needs of people with disabilities directly as well as indirectly through education, public awareness and advocacy.

Nick then worked quickly to assemble a Board of Directors, file all the neeeded documents (there were more than a few), await approvals and build this website. Once the approvals were given and Accessible Adirondack Tourism, Inc. was legally formed, Nick donated the website to the organization.

Sadly, Nick’s little brother never got to see this moment. He passed away on January 26, 2014, at the age of 42.

However, his memory lives on, right here, and in our tireless efforts to ensure the Adirondacks are accessible … to everyone.

Thank you for reading our story.

Nicks little brother on beach before he passed away

With Your Help, We're Making The Adirondacks More
Accessible for Everyone

Accessible Adirondack Tourism, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization that is authorized to accept donations that are tax deductable to our donors.

We're not just a website. We're also an online and in person educational resource for businesses, organizations and municipalities within the Adirondack region to assist them in their goals of being more accessible to people with all kinds of disabilities.

We offer organizations assistance with learning about how to make their locations, websites and social media pages available to everyone and we need your generous support to continue our mission.

DONATE NOW!