Warrenville man makes eco-friendly choices at home and work

Carl Gorra loves getting away from work with his family and visiting national parks, taking in all they have to offer. But nothing says “vacation” to Gorra like a week at the annual Midwest Renewable Energy Association conference.

The Warrenville resident and environmentalist, who also happens to be the Naperville Park District’s park operations manager, attends the annual conference every June in Stevens Point, Wis., to bring back tips for home and work.

“I really do look forward to it, so it is a vacation,” he said. “Every June I go catch up on the world of alternative fuels and see what I can bring back and use.”

He’s tried many ideas and admits some of the more successful ventures have worked at the park district, where he is a member of the 3-year-old Green Team.

Some of the “cutting-edge” advances he’s led include switching the district’s fleet to synthetic oils and using hydraulic oils designed to break down very quickly. The district also uses a fully electric “E-Ride” cart for work along the Riverwalk and a John Deere E-Gator on other paths.

Gorra, 50, also has converted one of the district’s diesel tractors to run solely on vegetable oil. This summer will be the first year he’ll run the converted tractor, to be used mostly at the recently renovated Knoch Park.

“My goal is to collect enough used vegetable oil from Ribfest to run that tractor all season,” he said. “I’m excited to see how that goes.”

Gorra says he’s tried to do things in an environmentally friendly way for as long as he can remember.

“Growing up in the ’70s, we were all very environmentally conscious. A lot of people who came from that decade are the ones who are rethinking all we do in terms of ‘is this right for the environment?’” he said.

“That mindset slipped for a bit, and we’re coming back around to realizing that we need to do things cleaner to keep this planet around for everyone.

“As far as awareness goes, we’ve turned a corner because technology has given us the ability to make better choices.”

Throughout his career, Gorra also has worked at the Morton Arboretum and at a commercial tree farm, and says planting a tree is really the easiest thing someone can do to help keep the planet “green.” Aside from that, he said everyone needs to be better at recycling.

“If you look around and see how good things can be, you get inspired to make everything as environmentally friendly as you can. Ultimately, it’s just a better way of living if we can all do it,” he said.

“Now, I’m not going out and chaining myself to a tree for the cause, but I will argue that if an attempt is made to be environmentally friendly, the results are better 100 percent of the time.”