ORDA board Chairman Pat Barrett announced Blazer’s retirement Thursday at a special meeting at the Conference Center at Lake Placid. The meeting was announced Wednesday.

The board reviewed and accepted Blazer’s retirement letter in a closed executive session at the start of the meeting. Mike Pratt, general manager of ORDA’s Gore Mountain ski resort in North Creek, has been appointed interim president and CEO.

“I’d like to take a moment to thank Ted; he’s done a lot for us,” Barrett said after the executive session.

“Ted epitomizes the saying that if there’s a will, there’s a way,” Barrett added in a statement. “His energy, enthusiasm and passion for the North Country and to the authority showed no boundaries and will be missed.”

Mike Pratt, right, the state Olympic Regional Development Authority’s interim president and CEO, speaks to ORDA board member Cliff Donaldson at the board’s special meeting Thursday at the Conference Center at Lake Placid, where it was announced that President and CEO Ted Blazer is retiring and that Pratt will succeed him for now. (Enterprise photos — Antonio Olivero)

Blazer, 61, has worked for ORDA for nearly 30 years and will stay as an adviser until his retirement at the end of February, ORDA Director of Communications Jon Lundin said. Blazer was not present at Thursday’s meeting. Lundin said Blazer submitted the retirement letter last week.

“During my 20 years as president and CEO, under the leadership of four different governors, the authority has maintained its status as the ‘Winter Sports Capital of the World,'” Blazer said in a statement. “I take tremendous pride in my role in being able to secure tens of millions of dollars in funding, maintaining these Olympic venues in world-class condition for national and international athletes to train and compete, and for the public to enjoy. Our venues have been the life blood of the North Country, creating jobs, promoting tourism and contributing to the economic stability and vitality of the region.”

Pratt, 55, is a Lake Placid native and has been general manager of Gore Mountain since 1996. He was a 1984 graduate of SUNY Potsdam with a degree in environmental planning, and his father Ray also served as an interim president and CEO for the authority, from 1994 to 1995 before Blazer was appointed to the position.

“I echo the sentiment of Chairman Barrett. ORDA achieved tremendous success under Ted’s leadership,” Pratt said in a statement. “I look forward to working with Ted through this transition and continuing to move the authority forward, working together with ORDA’s staff, our partners and the state.”

Blazer resigned once before as president and CEO, in August 2005, when he accepted a position at the Albany engineering firm Clough, Harbour and Associates. He agreed to come back, however, and the ORDA board reappointed him in January 2006 to a five-year term, selecting him over three other candidates and giving him a salary in the neighborhood of $150,000, more than when he had left the Authority the previous September.

In his statement Thursday, Blazer said the the most exciting moments of his tenure were the 2000 Winter Goodwill Games, the return of the Eastern College Athletic Conference Men’s Ice Hockey National Championships, Skate America and numerous World Cup and World Championship winter sports competitions.

“It has also been my distinct privilege to work with an exceptionally dedicated and skilled group of individuals who put in the long hours and hard work to make the authority successful,” he said in his statement. “These are not accomplishments that one makes alone; it takes an entire team.”

Blazer, who lives in Lake Placid, previously held positions with the authority including assistant manager and manager of Whiteface Mountain Ski Center in Wilmington in the 1980s and 1990s before he was named to the lead post in December 1995. Ned Harkness had previously been ORDA’s longest-serving president and CEO, from 1981 to 1992.

Blazer’s retirement comes on the heels of a tough 2015 and 2016 for the authority. At ORDA’s quarterly board meeting last Tuesday, Director of Finance Padraig Power said 2015-16’s financial woes, due to a warm winter, carried into the current fiscal year, which began in April.

“There is just no way to avoid that,” Power said. “Although revenues were drastically down, management has been very successful in managing expenses and allowing the organization to still succeed working up to winter 2016-17.”

Although ORDA had its two best summers on record back-to-back in 2015 and 2016, it was saddled by Whiteface’s worst winter season on record in 2015-16. ORDA’s operating revenues dropped by 25 percent from 2014-15 to 2015-16 as Whiteface’s total yearly revenues dropped from $9,549,752 to $7,698,359. Whiteface received 58 inches of natural snow and more than 17 inches of rain last season, compared to a typical average of more than 100 inches of snow.

ORDA officials hope early snowfall this season will result in a bounce-back. Also, Blazer signed off on a $90,000 lease of a snowmaking machine for ORDA’s cross-country ski center at Mount Van Hoevenberg. The “Snow Factory,” which ORDA touts as the only one of its kind in North America, will be there through June, and the authority has the option to buy it.

The authority wants to grow by an average of 3 percent in the next three years, despite last winter’s struggles, Director of Marketing Liz Mezzetti said at last week’s board meeting.

“The minimal growth that you are seeing, what we are saying is that it is not enough,” she said. “We want to see substantial change. We would like to see Whiteface, Belleayre and Gore grow by about 10 percent over the next three years.”

Lake Placid village Mayor Craig Randall said Thursday that ORDA’s succession plan seemed like “typically what happens with an organization looking for new leadership. We will be interested in how they go forward and will be looking for the best for ORDA and the best for Lake Placid for sure.”