Laurene von Klan’s tall frame is bent over sideways, her head twisted upward as she strains to see why the key she wields won’t work in the padlock. Her simple, handsomely tailored office clothes collect dust and her short brown hair flails as she struggles with an iron gate barring a door under the Michigan Avenue Bridge.
“This is making me really mad,” von Klan shouts unconvincingly above the din of cars whizzing by on Lower Wacker Drive.
The image of the 45-year-old executive director of Friends of the Chicago River–a woman who has earned the respect of friend and foe for her efforts to protect the city’s waterway–locked in battle with a piece of metal is both comical and apt. Von Klan’s success has come from her willingness to take on far bigger challenges with rolled-up shirt sleeves and a can-do attitude.
After a few minutes of coaxing, von Klan prevails and opens the gate with a laugh. Another obstacle overcome; on to the next order of business.
Von Klan is giving a tour of one of two historic bridge towers on Michigan Avenue that the non-profit Friends has leased for $1 a year from the city with the idea of turning them into a museum and educational facility. The first part of the two-phase project–transforming the five-floor tower on the southwest end into the River Museum–should be completed in spring 2005.
“We need to reach a lot more people,” said von Klan of the $4 million, four-year project. “If you live in Chicago, you have a relationship with the river. … The parks border it. It brings commerce and benefits to the city. … We need many more people to think about it and to know we exist.”
Raising the river’s profile
The River Museum is the latest project designed to raise the river’s profile that von Klan has spearheaded since becoming Friends’ director in 1992. It joins the Riverwalk, an effort to create a continuous greenway along its 156 miles; River Rescue Day, an annual volunteer cleanup; Chicago River Flatwater Classic, a canoe race; and Chicago River Schools Network, a program in which 220 area teachers use the river for educational purposes.
In addition, Friends helped create policies, such as the city’s first Chicago River development ordinance, and co-wrote the first Chicago River Urban Design Guidelines, and it regularly reviews riverside development proposals.
“She’s done an outstanding job drawing attention to a river that is far from pristine but very important to the community built around it and dependent on it,” said Don Elder, president of the River Network, a national non-profit that supports river groups. “She inspired the effort for many others working on similarly challenging river restoration situations.”
Significant improvements to the Chicago River, which spent most of the last 150 years as the city’s sewer, have taken place since a 1979 Chicago Magazine article depicting it as abused and friendless inspired the formation of Friends that same year. Von Klan credits the progress in part to the 1972 Clean Water Act and the Chicago-area’s Deep Tunnel Project for storm water and sewer drainage. Now thousands annually canoe and kayak the Chicago’s waters, she said.
Friends served primarily as an advocacy group during its first decade, according to Chris Parson, the manager of education and stewardship programs at Friends until retiring last year. Since von Klan came aboard 12 years ago, the organization’s programming has expanded and its budget has grown to $1.2 million from $170,000. It has captured numerous awards–the Brookings Institution included Friends in a study of 80 “high-performing non-profits” nationwide in 2001–and von Klan snagged the Chicago Audubon Society “Protector of the Environment” award in 2000.
She hasn’t done it all on her own–Friends has 2,000 members and the help of about 3,000 volunteers annually–but, von Klan has been the driving force, according to Parson.
“She’s an amazingly creative person,” he said. “For someone who works with her, that can be negative or positive. The ideas come so fast, you have to be able to say, `Wait a minute, that sounds good, but we can’t do it.’ But when you’re in her position, you need that creativity.”
Judy Fishman, a vice president at Rezmar Development Group, saw that ingenuity in meetings with von Klan to discuss plans for Riverside Park, a 63-acre retail and residential project on vacant land along the river’s south branch between 16th Street and Roosevelt Road. Fishman said von Klan persuaded her not to rebuild three stretches of crumbling cement river wall but, rather, to enhance the shoreline wetlands that have emerged in these areas by expanding their size and planting native species.
“She was terrific,” Fishman said. “She went right to the basis of what would be the most important from her group’s point of view and figured out how to make it work. … She’s really been the key to how [the plan is] ultimately going to turn out.”
Prairie gardener from the Bronx
Von Klan, a prairie gardener who conserves water with a rain barrel at her Albany Park home, didn’t plan for a career in the environmental field. A Bronx native who lived in Paris during high school, she earned a “practical” degree in economics at Williams College in Massachusetts.
“Environmental studies were so much about bugs, and I didn’t even own a pair of hiking boots. It didn’t ring with me,” she said. “I was interested in the urban environment, traffic and trash, and how to have nature and people together.”
After receiving her bachelor’s degree in 1981, von Klan moved to Chicago to enter the master’s program in international relations at the University of Chicago. As she explored her adopted hometown one day, she caught a glimpse of her future in a walk along the river.
“I thought it was wonderful. It reminded me of Paris,” she said. “I thought where are all the people? What’s happening? Some day I’m going to work on this river.”
In 1986, Von Klan took a job at The Nature Conservancy, an organization that works with government agencies and public and private groups to protect natural areas. She served as communications manager and then development director for the Illinois chapter and honed the leadership skills and vision that have helped her become, perhaps, the Chicago River’s best friend.
After a decade championing the river, von Klan tackled a new challenge in 2002 when she adopted Vladimir, a child from Kazakhstan. The 5-year-old ball of energy has changed her life. This single mom no longer works 50 to 60 hours a week and finds herself immersed in a world of engines, tractors and pirates. Still, the ribbon of water that winds through the heart of the city remains tethered to hers.
“I’ve been offered this wonderful gift in life. It’s a wonderful opportunity to make a difference in the place where I live,” she said. “I love doing it.”
