Cam Cardinale is a bit of a wunderkind.

He started working for the family business, Cardinale auto shop on Route 9 in South Glens Falls, nine years ago, behind the counter and handling their social media. An Instragram account that he built to 10,000 followers helped him land a job at Mannix Marketing in 2020, working on social media for GlensFalls.com, one of Mannix’s many websites. Kate Austin, the owner and founder of Advokate, the Glens Falls Public Relations firm, recruited him in 2021. In two years, he became director of marketing and communications for her company. He runs Nancy Turner’s campaign for the Warren County Board Supervisors and has organized the LGBTQ+ Pride rallies in Glens Falls.

Monday morning he began as the director of community engagement for Southern Adirondack Independent Living, a position the company created and then recruited him into.

“He just turned 18 last week,” his father Pete Cardinale said, adding with some pride that his son has already met with state legislators, Gov. Kathy Hochul, and other politicos in the area. He was invited all-expenses-paid to see the Lion King on Broadway. And he’ll lunch with members of Congress this November. His father said: “He’s got it going on.”

Cam Cardinale, pronounced “Cardinally,” said he graduated from high school at 17, and had planned to attend SUNY New Paltz, but his career has taken off, so he is staying here. Much of that start came during the pandemic when the flexibility of classes offered him time to work in marketing through social media.

The new position at SAIL will have him focused on all elements of external communications for the regional nonprofit that helps people with mobility issues live full lives.

People at SAIL, including Cardinale and Executive Director Tyler Whitney, say “SAIL is the best kept secret.”

“Within a year, I want to make that not a thing,” Cardinale said.

SAIL not only helps people with the equipment they need at home, work or on vacation by loaning, giving or selling it to them, but also they help people get Medicaid waivers or navigate through governmental bureaucracy.

In the past year, the company has made a bigger push to help local businesses realize that SAIL can help the company become more compliant with Americans with Disabilities Act requirements and that SAIL can help with the “reasonable accommodations” that companies of certain sizes must offer by law.

“It’s a big thing about really increasing SAIL’s message, getting it out there…making connections on the government level on the business level, on the community level all the way down to the consumer,” Cardinale said.

He added that he and others in SAIL have planned a trip to Washington DC this November to meet local legislators — SAIL has offices in Queensbury, Wilton and Plattsburgh — and to meet with governmental leadership who work on committees in the disabilities area.

SAIL gets funding through grants, and having government leadership on their side is key, Cardinale said.

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