Mr. Monroe grew up on an island in Loon Lake in the Adirondacks. As a child, he helped his father dismantle a six story hotel on the island, which did not meet current building codes, and use the materials to build house keeping cottages to rent. He learned to appreciate the natural beauty of the region, the people’s resilience, their self reliance, and their culture of hunting and fishing to supplement meager incomes. He graduated from Siena College, with a B.S. in Physics. After college, he became an Air Force Officer and was assigned as officer in charge of Quality Control of the North American Air Defense Fighter/Interceptor Direction Center in Maine. He subsequently received top secret security clearance and completed classified Special Instruments training in Alexandria, Virginia and Denver, Colorado. He was assigned as commander of a special classified mission for HQ Command USAF in Pago Pago, Samoa. His unit also supported recovery operations for the Apollo 13 and 14 moon landing mission crews and received the Air Force Outstanding Unit Award.
After active duty, he attended Syracuse University College of Law and graduated with a J.D. degree cum laude. He was selected as a member of the Justinian Honorary Law Society and was admitted to practice in New York and federal courts. He practiced real estate, civil and criminal law in the Adirondacks from1976 to 1999. During that time he counseled and assisted numerous Adirondack residents experiencing serious difficulties in building or buying a home or starting a business because of onerous land use regulations. He became very concerned that many of the land rights of some of the most vulnerable residents of Adirondack communities were being improperly, and arguably unconstitutionally, taken without compensation, and that there was an imbalance between the regulators wielding the power of the state and the relatively powerless residents. He also represented the Air Force as a Civil Air Patrol Search and Rescue Liaison Officer and as a U.S. Air Force Academy Liaison Officer. During that time, he also served as counsel to the Adirondack Towns of Chester, Schroon, Minerva and Lake Pleasant. He retired from the Air Force Reserves as a Major and is a licensed private pilot.
In 1992, he was elected supervisor of the Town of Chester and continues to serve in that office. He served as chairman of the Warren County Board of Supervisors for three years. He is one of the founders and former chairman of the Adirondack Fairness Coalition formed in opposition to the extreme recommendations in the Report of Governor Mario Cuomo’s Commission on the Adirondacks in the Twenty-First Century. One of those defeated recommendations would have required 2000 acres to build one home on half the private land in the Adirondacks. He is also a Director and one of the founders of the Adirondack Association of Towns and Villages. He has represented Warren County on the DEC Region 5 Open Space Committee and the Adirondack Initiative Roundtable. He served on the federally funded New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine Northern Forest Lands Council Advisory Committee and the steering committee for the Adirondack Park Regional Assessment Project. He currently serves on the Intercounty Legislative Committee of the Adirondacks and the New York State Forest Preserve Advisory Committee for the Adirondacks and the Catskills.
He served ten years as confidential law clerk to Essex County Judge, Family Court Judge, Surrogate and Acting Supreme Court Judge Andrew Halloran. From 1994 to 1999 he served as Counsel to the Adirondack Park Local Government Review Board. In that position he attended APA meetings, researched issues and prepared resolutions and reports to the governor and legislature. He was appointed executive director of the Review Board by the representatives of eleven Adirondack counties in April 2005. He has testified on land issues at congressional and New York State legislative hearings and is committed to ensuring the protection of the resources of the region in a way which also protects its people, their culture, and their needs for jobs and homes.
The Review Board was created in the same law which created the Adirondack Park Agency for the purpose of monitoring, advising and assisting the Agency and reporting to the governor and legislature on the administration of the Adirondack Park Land Use and Development Plan.
