When a soft-spoken and well-educated ecologist resettled in Louisville from Washington, D.C., seven years ago, he almost missed out on the opportunity to work in the nation’s largest municipally owned forest. “I didn’t know Jefferson Memorial Forest was here, like a lot of people,” says Bennett Knox. “I even researched jobs all day in a library and didn’t find a reference to it.” Today, under Knox’s leadership, the forest has undergone improvements that have put it on more people’s radar.
A native of Georgetown, Ky., the 37-year-old parks manager spent childhood afternoons wandering farmland and learning his work ethic from two parents who were civil servants. He graduated from the Universityof Kentucky with a degree in resource conservation, an interest he attributes to an ecology class and, of all things, learning Russian. “At the time, the Soviet Union was breaking up and stuff kept coming out about the environmental degradation there,” Knox says. “So I kept reading about the environment and eventually went to Russiaand did some research on nature preserves.”
He went on to receive a master’s in environmental management with an emphasis on forest ecology from DukeUniversity. During a stint with an environmental consulting firm in Washington, D.C., he met his wife Michelle, who, coincidentally, attended his hometown high school.
When the pair decided to leave the bustle of the nation’s capital and return to their home state, they chose Louisville. Knox learned of the Jefferson Forest job with the Metro Parks Department from an acquaintance. He recalls his first visit to the 6,000-acre property with a grimace. “The first time I went, I got lost because the signage was horrible,” he says. “I went to a place marked on a map as a trailhead, Scot’s Gap. It was being used as a log yard.”
Working with a $850,000 annual budget and a willing pool of volunteers, Knox and his two staffers created trail maps and a website, removed waste, improved picnic facilities and signage, and expanded educational programs. Assistant director of Metro Parks Jerry Brown credits Knox for the uptick: “He goes beyond the call of duty by taking initiative in addressing things that need improvement and finding ways to make changes,” says Brown.
The next step is the implementation of a master plan for fixing up forest facilities. “Land was acquired piecemeal and it’s a jigsaw puzzle that’s slowly been filled in,” Knox says. “We have a comprehensive plan to really bring the forest up to par. Outdoor recreational opportunities and education are critical for connecting our community to their world.”
