Longtime defender of environment Rich Walesky dies

He led Palm Beach County environmental efforts for 24 years before retiring in 2011; spoke of his ‘obligation to future generations.’

Rich Walesky, a passionate defender of the environment who worked as Palm Beach County’s first and longest-serving Environmental Resources Management director, died earlier this month at 76. 

Walesky had been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease when he passed away June 14 in hospice at Good Samaritan Medical Center, said his wife, Lillian.

“We live in a very special corner of the world, and it’s our obligation to future generations to be good stewards of what we enjoy today,” Walesky often said, a philosophy that guided his career.

County commissioners tapped Walesky to head Environmental Resources Management when they created the department in 1987 as developers pushed to pave the wide open spaces in a county of 700,000 residents, less than half the population today. 

Walesky, a state environmental regulator before he became ERM’s first director, held the post until his retirement in 2011. 

Over his 24 years, he built the fledgling agency into an impactful regulatory force, creating a legacy reflected today along the county’s 47 miles of coastline, many waterways and its 38 natural areas from Cypress Creek in Jupiter to the Yamato Scrub in Boca Raton.

Still, his name is little known among the tourists and residents who take advantage of the county’s diverse preserves, unaware of the countless hours Walesky and his staff put in to make the lands available to the public.  

“He was an advocate for all the things he believed in but he wasn’t a zealot,” his son, Dan, said. “He understood practicalities in addition to the preservation part of it. That is why he was able to be so successful.”

Took his family on assignments

A native of Cheshire, Conn., Walesky grew up an avid Boy Scout who loved the outdoors. He graduated with a biology degree from Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., where he played lacrosse. 

He married Lillian, bought a van and took off with his new wife on a road trip across the United States, stopping for months at a time to make money waiting tables and tending bars. 

“They made it to Florida and he fell in love with the marine environment,’’ Dan recalled. 

Walesky, who enjoyed snorkeling and scuba diving, got his master’s degree in wetlands ecology from Florida Atlantic University in 1976 and put his knowledge to work. 

As a regulator with the Florida Department of Environmental Resources, a job that took him from the Florida Keys to Martin County, he often brought his wife and three children on assignments. 

“When builders would exceed the scope of their permits or do something without a permit, like cut down mangroves or build on coral reefs, he’d have to go out and document the evidence. For us, those were our family vacations. We’d go down to the Keys and snorkel around while he was taking pictures,’’ Dan said. 

When Walesky joined ERM in 1987, he wasted no time creating the new department, with help from his first two hires, Jim Barry and Allen Trefry. 

“He didn’t get hired and do nothing. He got hired and he got started. He created a department that didn’t exist and made it meaningful the right way,’’ said Karen Marcus, a county commissioner from 1984 to 2012. 

‘He would come and tell us the truth’

Under his leadership, the department grew from roughly 30 employees in its first year to more than 165 when he retired in 2011, managing annual operating and capital budgets that together surpassed $125 million.

Walesky, a guard on his high school football team, was not intimidated by wealthy powerbrokers pushing development or the elected county commissioners who served as his collective boss. 

“He was very direct. He would come and tell us the truth, which I so appreciated,’’ Marcus said. “And if we were being idiots, he’d tell us and he’d steer us in the direction where he knew it was best for the environment.’’

Walesky, who made Eagle Scout in 1964, was scoutmaster for Troop 199 in West Palm Beach for many years. He often enlisted his Scouts, including sons Dan and Dave, on ERM volunteer projects to pull weeds, bag trash and plant mangroves.

Years later, Dan said he got a taste of his father’s reputation when he returned from college and took a job with a developer. 

“I would meet developers, sitting around a table and introducing ourselves and they would hear my dad’s name and they’d bristle at it. 

‘You’re a Walesky?’” he recalled with a laugh.

“Everyone had a story in the development world of fighting with him over something, wetland preservation, gopher tortoises. He definitely was a force,” Dan said. 

‘He had a tremendous mind’

During his tenure, Walesky championed landmark restoration projects, helping create new parks and recreational areas while making sure developers made as minimal an impact on the environment as possible.

“He never wanted to be anti-development. He believed in smart development. He believed in preservation,’’ Dan said. 

Walesky played a key role in preserving more than 31,000 acres of county-owned natural lands with diverse ecosystems — forests, freshwater and estuarine wetlands, grassy areas, dunes and beaches. 

“When you look at all the environmentally sensitive lands that we have now, he’s the one who put together the committee that came up with a list of lands. He was very involved with all of that,’’ said Marcus, who worked with Walesky to find money to buy and preserve land. 

Many of the 38 parcels were acquired through multimillion dollar voter-approved bond referendums in the 1990s. Walesky worked to get state matching money to pay for more.  

“If we hadn’t done it, then you wouldn’t have a fraction of the natural areas that you have today,’’ said Jim Barry, Walesky’s first ERM hire in 1987. 

“Rich was a really unusual character. He was brilliant. He had a tremendous mind. He could think through problems really easily. He was willing to stick his neck out and be very creative with the programs we started,’’ Barry said. 

‘For the enjoyment of the public’

In Winding Waters Natural Area, a 548-acre preserve northwest of Military Trail and 45th Street with hiking trails and abundant bird life, a plaque was erected in Walesky’s honor in 2015.

Winding Waters and Cypress Creek, two areas that had been scarred with borrow pits before ERM converted them into environmental jewels, are examples of how Walesky was “extremely good at doing restoration projects and turning an ugly situation into a beautiful landscape,’’ said environmentalist Joanne Davis.   

“He was pretty much a miracle worker on some of this stuff,’’ said Davis, who for 13 years chaired the county’s environmentally sensitive land selection committee. 

“ERM still continues his legacy and does things quietly and beautifully,” she said. “They’re not in it for the fanfare. They are in it for the long term for the enjoyment of the public and for the protection of what’s left of our ecosystems.”

In retirement, Walesky continued his mission, serving as board member on Sustainable Palm Beach County, a nonprofit launched by Marcus. 

He traveled in retirement with his wife in Europe, South America, China, Russia, Antarctica and Australia, at times visiting former foreign exchange students whom they hosted years earlier in West Palm Beach after their own kids had left the house. 

He spent his final years doting over Ivan, a loving Golden Retriever. 

Walesky is survived by his wife, Lillian Walesky; sons David and Daniel Walesky; daughter Trisha Ruiz; grandchildren Ashlee Walesky and Dominick Ruiz; brother Don Walesky; and sister Linda Palmatier.

A Celebration of Life will be held at 6 pm July 12 at the Lake Worth Beach Golf Club, a location chosen for its scenic view of Snook Islands, a wetlands restoration project completed in 2005 under Walesky’s direction.