He glows Alec Johnson

he glows

ALEC JOHNSON

By Barb Sieminski | Photo by Zack Kittaka

Barely shaking the corn silk from his hair only to settle down in another corn-fed state, Iowan native Alec Johnson came to Fort Wayne 14 years ago when he accepted a job as City Landscape Architect with the Fort Wayne Parks and Recreation Department.

“When I was studying landscape architecture at Iowa State University, I worked for a landscape architect at a small design-build landscape company,” said Johnson, who took his first job at a civil engineering firm in a Minneapolis suburb after graduation.

“After later moving to another architecture firm where I led the landscape architecture division, I saw the Parks job and threw my hat into the ring. The next thing I knew, we were packing up and moving east to Fort Wayne,” he said.

Now Deputy Director of Planning and Development for the Parks Department, Johnson currently works on master plans for four small neighborhood parks. He is also working on various public art projects as a commissioner on the Public Art Commission and said his most visible projects is the design for Riverfront Phase Two and Three in Promenade Park, which is just the beginning.

“My wife, Laura, is an audiologist for ENT Associates in Fort Wayne,” said Johnson. “Our oldest son Logan, a North Side High School graduate, started at the College of Architecture and Planning at Ball State last fall, and our daughter Isabella is a freshman at North Side High School. We have a rescue dog named Alt and a rescue cat named Coda, neither of which comes when called.”

Those creative pet names should be a tip that Johnson is deeply involved in music composition and production. He was one a member of the founding team that started and managed the Middle Waves Music Festival. He is also an aficionado of hiking, biking, projection mapping, digital art and fly-fishing.

His greatest career accomplishment is becoming a skilled and capable practician of his craft.

“Landscape architecture is a rich, complex field of practice that has an immediate effect on the people who experience the places I design,” said Johnson. “I have the great pleasure and responsibility for shaping the places and spaces where life happens. The accomplishment comes with seeing that process play out again and again.”

What is Johnson’s favorite memory of working for the Parks Department thus far?

“The grand opening of Taylor’s Dream Boundless Playground at Kreager Park was a great day. Watching kids of all abilities rush onto the playground that my team and I designed, was emotional and incredibly gratifying,” concluded Johnson. a

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