(Credit: Lake George Association, 2022)
Jeff Killeen
Jeff Killeen, a retired business executive who helped craft the merger between the FUND for Lake George and the Lake George Association, passed away Wednesday after a long illness.
“He took up the future of Lake George as a ‘retirement project’ after a successful career in business,” said Mark Behan, president and founder of Behan Communications, which handles public relations for the LGA. Behan was also a close friend and confidant of Killeen’s.
“He was a senior vice president with Dun & Bradstreet,” Behan told FoothillsBusinessDaily.com. “He helped barnesandnoble.com grow from zero to $250 million in sales in less than two years. And he served as the founding chief executive of forbes.com before founding and leading GlobalSpec, a North Greenbush search engine for engineers, for 11 years.”
When he moved to Diamond Point, Killeen joined forces with Dr. John Kelly of IBM and Dr. Shirley Jackson, president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, to create the Jefferson Project, a comprehensive real-time data collection system that is a model for other fresh-water lakes.
Behan said Killeen “celebrated the beauty of Lake George almost every morning with painting-like photographs he shot from his home at Diamond Point and distributed among friends, including important contributors and influential people whose help he sought to protect the lake.”
The LGA released this statement Wednesday afternoon. A portion of it is here:
“Lake George has lost one of its greatest champions and protectors. Jeff Killeen, vice-chairman of the Lake George Association, passed away this morning (Dec. 14, 2022). We all mourn the gravity of this loss.
“Tireless of vision, spirit, and commitment, Jeff gave all of himself to the lake he loved. His deep passion for Lake George was contagious and inspiring, and united our community behind the lake as only Jeff could — with grace, humor, and a steadfast belief in our shared ability to keep Lake George clear and clean.
“First, as chairman of The FUND for Lake George, he provided the vision for a national model of science-guided protection, combining world-class research, technological innovation, direct investment, and public policy advocacy.
“In 2021, recognizing that the unprecedented water quality threats confronting the Lake required an unprecedented level of protection, Jeff led the merger of The FUND for Lake George with the Lake George Association, creating the preeminent Lake George protection organization.
“It is fitting that the sun shines bright on Lake George today. Jeff’s spirit lives on, lighting our way through the darkness of grief to honor his legacy of love for Lake George and fulfill the promise of lasting lake protection.”
Behan said Killeen was vice-chair-elect of the St. Lawrence University Board of Trustees and a director and former chairman of the board of the Center for Disability Services in Albany.
Correction: We initially posted the wrong day of Jeff Killeen's death. It has been corrected. We apologize for the error.