Board Corner: Jill Cardinale

05 Oct Board Corner: Jill Cardinale

Jill Cardinale has been an active member of the ROOST board since 2012. But don’t ask her that. She tends to think forward rather than focus on the past.

She’s also one of those people who sees a challenge and jumps in head first. Growing up in the Hudson Valley town of Claverack, she spent her childhood vacationing in Lake Placid. She went to Clarkson University in Potsdam and worked as an industrial engineer in the printing industry, in a job that had her on the road a lot. She was dropping her son off at daycare one day, and she thought, “Why am I doing this?”

So about 13 year ago, when she was vacationing in Lake Placid and noticed that the Pines Inn was for sale, she saw entering the hospitality industry as a way to spend more time with her family and seized the opportunity. In less than a year, Jill and her husband were being handed keys to the inn, where there were currently guests in the rooms.

They did so much work on the inn in the first year that they barely left the property. Every once in a while, Jill would realize it had been a few weeks since she had been anywhere else. And they’re still in the process of renovating the historical inn, which first opened in the summer of 1900. Jill and her family do all the work themselves, so the Pines Inn is truly a family-run business.

And all the work has paid off. Jill is happy that she’s beginning to have more free time. Her daughter recently moved back with her own daughter to help run the inn. And their customers appreciate the fact that a small family runs the business, so they keep coming back. They like the fact that Jill and her family truly care about their stay.

Jill moved to Lake Placid because she loves it here, and she sees her work on the ROOST board as a way to help keep Lake Placid the wonderful, thriving Adirondack village that she first fell in love with. She recognizes that the tourism industry is incredibly important to keeping the region vital, and also that it’s important to protect the communities we have so travelers will want to continue to come here and enjoy themselves.

She feels it’s important that she gives a voice to the smaller lodging properties in Lake Placid. Jill and the other small, independent motels and inns have different challenges and needs from the larger resorts, so she believes it’s helpful to have representation from both of those groups on the ROOST board, because it’s necessary that Lake Placid maintains a mix of various types of lodging in order to attract a wide variety of customers.

During her time on the board, Jill has found that her voice has been heard, which is important to her. She’s focused on looking for solutions rather than just talking about problems, and she sees each problem as an opportunity. Working with the board has been an enriching experience for her, with a good mix of people who make it interesting to discuss issues and to work together to come up with solutions that will work for everyone.