The M-ARK Group has named Peg Ellsworth, Roxbury's longtime community resources director, as its executive director, board President Ernest Steiglehner announced Friday.
Steiglehner said the board was impressed with Ellsworth's detailed plan for moving the organization forward during the next six months.
Ellsworth said that she begins Tuesday.
"I'm enthusiastic about using my skills," Ellsworth said Friday.
The M-ARK Group, formerly the M-ARK Project, was founded in 1978 to encourage economic development and provide affordable housing opportunities in the Margaretville-Arkville area. Since that time, it has expanded its mission to encompass the town of Middletown, as well as Andes and Roxbury.
Joan Lawrence-Bauer served most recently as its executive director and left the organization to become director of public relations for Crossroads Ventures.
Ellsworth said she is looking forward to the economic challenges.
"This is truly the time to act locally, think regionally' as we all move into a new, challenging economic terrain and an ever evolving business landscape," Ellsworth said.
In recent years, the M-ARK Group has been instrumental in generating revitalization efforts in Fleischmanns, assisting more than a dozen business startups throughout the area, and building and renting 30 housing units at Mountain Laurel Gardens, including seniors' housing.
Ellsworth's community involvement in Roxbury began in 1999, when she was hired as a consultant on a parks restoration project. Ellsworth led the community restoration work on Kirkside Park.
She helped found a vintage baseball team, the Roxbury Nine, and the annual Labor Day "Turn of the Century" festival, now in its ninth year. Through grant funds and county youth employment agencies, she has employed Roxbury students on projects such as park landscaping, historical hamlet tours, town research and event planning.
In 2003, the hamlet of Roxbury was listed on the state and national registers of historic places, and in 2005, as a result of its creative heritage tourism programs, Roxbury earned the "Preserve America Community" designation from the White House, a distinction that made the town eligible for an exclusive round of competitive grants.
Ellsworth has helped obtain more than $150,000 in Preserve America and local foundation funding for Roxbury's heritage tourism in the past three years.
"Because M-ARK is regional, I will still be working with Roxbury," Ellsworth said. "And my love for Roxbury will never die."
"Peg has spent the past decade making the town of Roxbury a destination without sacrificing its charm or our way of life," Roxbury Supervisor Tom Hynes said in a media release. "If she can accomplish the same for other local towns and villages, we'll all be the better for it."
Ellsworth said she is working with the Roxbury Town Board and the M-ARK board on a comfortable transition.
She may be reached via e-mail at peg@catskill.net.
