Brian Price, the only executive director the Leelanau Conservancy has ever known, will step down by early next year. Price was first hired on a part-time basis in 1988.

Price tells The Ticker the organization's board of directors has had a transition committee in place for a couple of years in preparation for his retirement. He says the board will conduct a search this summer and hopes to have a new executive director installed by the end of the year.

"By the beginning of next year, if all goes well, I'll step away," he says.

While Price says he always believed in the group's mission of conserving the land, water and scenic character of Leelanau County, he couldn't have imagined the scope of its impact.

"I always thought that if we harnessed all the goodwill and the feelings people have for the beauty of this region that people would respond," he says. "But I never thought this organization would be so successful or grow to what it is today," citing his staff of 12.

"We should be proudest that we had our hand in changing the underlying tone … that people don't have to be resigned to a loss of a community's character [ as it grows and changes]. And that's true across the region."

The Ticker spoke with Price about the Conservancy's 25th anniversary last summer. Read what he had to say about those early days on the job, his most cherished projects, as well as the organization's biggest challenge in his 26-year tenure.