Konrad Tomaszewski
General director of the National Forestry Authority (PGLLP)
By : Greg Goodale
Konrad Tomaszewski's working life has been involved with conservation and the environment, and as head of the country's forestry department he's made it one of the most profitable enterprises in Poland.
Initially attracted to forestry by the relative freedom it offered him from the repression of city life under communism, Tomaszewski said a schooling in Romantic Literature initially inspired his lifelong relationship with the environment. "It's a short step from romanticism to a love of forests," said the 52-year-old Tomaszewski.
After graduating from the Warsaw Academy of Agriculture (SGGW) when he was 22 years old, he joined the forestry service as a doctoral student. Then in 1984, with Poland under martial law, Tomaszewski became director of a state conservation collective. It was an experience that he used to start his own company in 1987, specializing in the conservation of wooden antiques and employing 16 people. "It was the school of hard knocks," Tomaszewski said. "This is where I learned accounting and my respect for money and saving. Accounting is a very important skill that greatly eases the management process."
Tomaszewski said he would have continued to make a living in conservation if it were not for his appointment as adviser to the environment minister during Solidarity's first government. At the Supreme Board of Inspection (NIK), which he joined in 1995, he quickly made a name for himself as a thorough inspector of state ecological funds, eventually resigning in protest at the marginalization of his findings.
Past notes:
1971 Graduated from the Warsaw Academy of Agriculture's (SGGW) forestry department
1987 Established his own conservation firm specializing in antiques
1990 Appointed adviser to the Environment Minister
1995 Became a NIK inspector
1997 Joined the PGLLP
1999 Appointed director of PGLLP
A word of advice:
"In business we can't avoid certain enticing possibilities, but once you've got your hands dirty they won't come clean again."
