Diane Walden is reporting for The Columbia Paper Brenda Adams, the CEO and executive director of Columbia County Habitat for Humanity has announced her retirement from the post she has held for nearly 13 years. Habitat, a nonprofit housing organization, was founded in 1993, "to make safe, decent, affordable homeownership available to working families." Adams said in a conversation with The Columbia Paper this week, “Habitat will always be dear to my heart. I could stay there forever. You’ll never find a more inspiring, committed, compassionate or engaged group of people.” During Adams' tenure, Habitat built the first affordable passive housing in New York; launched a ReStore operation which contributes $100,000 yearly to construction operations; and, expanded Habitat’s build and rehab activity to a total of 27 completed houses. Adam identified Habitat’s partnership with the BarlisWedlick architectural firm as a significant transformational step for the organization. She said the firm, beginning in 2013, “provided leadership, support and introduced Habitat to passive house building.” The pandemic initially caused Habitat project progress this year to stop and before it restarted at a slower pace. Adams said a search is currently underway for families interested in owning two finished Habitat homes in Ancramdale. A family has been identified for the completed rehabilitation of a home in Valatie — that sale is expected to take place in the next few weeks. Beginning in late spring or early summer next year, Habitat will turn its attention to a project in Philmont. Habitat Board President Chris Kersten has formed a search committee. Efforts to identify a new executive director and CEO will begin immediately. Adams plans to stay on until a new director is found. Read the full story in The Columbia Paper.