Wint Aldrich has lived beside the Hudson River all his life and for much of that time, has been a passionate student of the region's history and an advocate for preserving its natural and historic resources.

A member of the tenth generation of his family to own land at Rokeby, in Red Hook, he was an incorporator of Hudson River Heritage in 1974 and played a major role in establishing, in 1990, the Hudson River National Historic Landmark District, extending along the river from Staatsburg north to Clermont. This extraordinary district is the largest National Historic Landmark District in the United States , and its federal landmark status is acknowledgement that the mansions, hamlets, farmsteads and other historic resources in the heart of the Hudson Valley are of the highest national significance. This work, in turn, contributed to the Congressional enactment of the Hudson River Valley National Heritage Area in 1996.

Mr. Aldrich served as president of the Hudson River Conservation Society (1974-84), facilitating its evolution into today's Scenic Hudson, and he was the founding president of Wilderstein Preservation in Rhinebeck (1980-88). Since 1975, he has been Red Hook Town Historian.

In January of this year, he retired from his position as New York State 's Deputy Commissioner for Historic Preservation, a post at the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation to which he was appointed in 1994. For the proceeding 20 years, he had served as a special assistant to six successive commissioners of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. During this long tenure, Mr. Aldrich was the leading force for the preservation of historic resources that range from the Adirondack Great Camps of Santanoni and Sagamore to New York State’s four National Historic Landmark psychiatric hospitals in Binghamton, Buffalo, Poughkeepsie and Utica.

A graduate of Harvard College , with a degree in history, and a former Army captain in Vietnam , Mr. Aldrich and his wife Tracie Rozhon now live in New York City , and at Rokeby.

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