HIS LAND IS OUR LAND

There’s forward thinking and then there’s Alex Ty Kovach thinking.

Kovach, who goes by Ty, has been the Lake County Forest Preserve District Executive Director since 2013. He’s not concerned about tomorrow.

Or 10 years from now.

Try 100 years.

“I’m thinking about future generations and my great-great grandchildren,” says the 63-year-old Kovach, who lives in Gurnee with his wife, Lea, and their daughters, Alexia, 7, and Isla, 5. “It’s not about us; it’s about staying focused on the mission and wanting a healthy landscape here a century from now.”

Created in 1958, the Lake County Forest Preserve District manages more than 31,000 acres of land for conservation, recreation, and education—more than 10 percent of all the land in Lake County. Its mission is to preserve a dynamic and unique system of diverse natural and cultural resources and to develop innovative, educational, recreational, and cultural opportunities of regional value that reflect a commitment to environmental and fiscal responsibility.

“You have to listen and surround yourself with really good people,” Kovach says of the keys to effective leadership. “More than 300 volunteers help us, and we have about 200 staffers, all amazing.”

The Preservation Foundation of the Lake County Forest Preserves shares the Forest Preserves’ vision that 100 years from now, Lake County will be a healthy, resilient landscape with restored and preserved natural lands, waters, and cultural assets. The Preservation aims to raise $20 million in permanent endowment to ensure resources are in place to care for woodlands, prairies and wetlands forever.

“The biggest thing that needs to happen is that we endow all that land, because we can get tax dollars to the operational side of it, and we can get capital dollars to do the actual restoration,” Kovach says. “What we lack is a way to permanently fund and take care of that.”

Kovach was born in Michigan and grew up in a Minnesota household that lacked electricity and running water until he was 11. Home was Akeley, Minnesota, in a cabin near 8th Lake.

“My parents (Alexander and Jennifer) raised me on a dairy farm,” says Kovach, adding his paternal grandfather, Joseph, had arrived in the United States from Hungary in 1912 and worked as a coal miner. “They were hardworking, frugal, self-sufficient. I still own the farm in Akeley and visit there every three or four months.”

He majored in Industrial Technology and ran track—the 400-yard dash was his specialty—at Bemidji State University in Minnesota. Kovach’s first job out of college was stress load analyst for Osmose Company in Biloxi, Mississippi. Stops in Texas and Mexico preceded his lengthy tenure (1988-2006) with the Department of Natural Resources in Minnesota.

From crew leader to regional manager to bureau operations manager, Kovach worked for a government agency that manages five million acres in the Land of 10,000 Lakes.

“I got to know Minnesota quite well,” he says. “It was in the 1980s when I started getting into conservation.”

Kovach met his future wife in Salvador, a fishing village in Brazil. They got married 11 years ago—the same year he joined the Lake County Forest Preserve District (LCFPD). Seventy-five percent of Lake County’s residents use the Forest Preserves’ trails, dog parks, fishing piers, and three golf courses (Brae Loch in Grayslake; Countryside in Mundelein; and Thunderhawk in Beach Park). The LCFPD location houses the Bess Bower Dunn Museum of Lake County, which collects, preserves, and interprets the material culture of Lake County and provides captivating educational experiences and inspiring exhibitions for the benefit of every Lake County resident.

The Forest Preserves spends about $75 per acre annually to guarantee its restored lands remain healthy. And the LCFPD, Kovach notes, has the highest approval rating of any unity of government in Lake County.

“Residents are confident in the way we manage,” says Kovach, who in 2023 was named a Notable Leader in Sustainability by Crain’s Chicago Business. “Let’s say there are 3,000 conservation-minded residents in Lake County. I’ve often wondered, what if all 700,000 residents thought that way?”

Among Kovach’s passions away from his office in Libertyville is gardening. Growing sweet red peppers is a long family tradition. He also grows squash, okra, and tomatoes.

“I also still love to fish,” he says. “I’m a hunter, too, but hunting to me is more about walking through the woods and taking in the beauty than it is about hunting. There’s nothing like the peace, along with the natural wonder, when you’re outdoors. Too many don’t take the time to look at our beautiful surroundings.”

Kovach shared his leadership style in a video—narrated by the venerable Bill Kurtis, a longtime Lake County denizen—that can be viewed at lcfp.org.

“Don’t stifle creativity, because that’s where the ideas are going to come from, that’s where the good work is going to come from, that’s where the enthusiasm is going to come from, and that’s where the cultural change is going to come from,” he says.

The same man originally thought he’d serve the Lake County Forest Preserve District as its executive director for only three years.

He’s thrilled that he has stayed put.

“There’s more stuff to do,” Kovach says.

The Lake County Forest Preserves’ general offices are located at 1899 West Winchester Road, Libertyville. Visit lcfpd.org for more information.