NEW JERSEY COPS n JULY 2014
35
FOLLOW THE LEADERS...
A Fighter and
a Brother
Count on Marc Kovar to be a
straight shooter and relentless
leader who as NJ State PBA
Executive Vice-President
won’t be afraid to mix it up.
n BY MITCHELL KRUGEL
Searching for the right analogy or the best way to characterize
how Marc Kovar fits into the new
NJ State PBA Leadership takes us
through the postings on
Wikipedia, the pages of popular
culture and the analogies to life’s
dynamic duos. In this new NJ
State PBA regime, it appears that
the Executive Vice-President
should flaunt a catcher’s toughness combined with the guile of
a helmsman and the persona of
one of the boys or girls.
But as the running buddy, consigliore and partner to the
affable, clever and inventive Pat Colligan, expect Kovar to be a
bit of the Sundance Kid.
Those who know Kovar know he’s better when he moves –
running a Collective Bargaining Meeting in the morning, serving the Legal Protection, Survivor & Welfare or Legislative committees later in the day then getting up in the middle of the
night because one his Local members was involved in an incident that needs the State Delegate’s help.
Those who don’t know Kovar should know that his first exposure to the PBA came as a rookie cop when he started attending Passaic Local 14 meetings back in the 1990s that could have
been held at a Wild West saloon. Or at least that’s the way Kovar
remembers them: older members dominating the conversation, and when debating didn’t render any decision, the meetings would come to blows - actual fisticuffs.
No wonder that considering Kovar’s initial exposure to the
union ways, his PBA DNA has developed into that of a fighter.
Make no mistake: He’s the Sundance Kid in full formal dress.
“When I first became a PBA member, back then, most guys
retired at 65. We had some real
tough, intimidating cops on the
job,” Kovar recounted. “Just because
I was a young kid, I wasn’t afraid to
tell off the old-timers. I spoke up
and won over a few of them.”
Kovar has been winning them
over thusly for 20-plus years, the
past 11 as a State Delegate and the
past several as a member of the NJ
State PBA Executive Board. Apparently, he did likewise with
President Colligan.
On that Sunday evening, June 22, Colligan had just found
out he was going to the be the next NJ State PBA President, and
his first instinct was to find a partner, a running mate, a yin to
his yang, to be Executive Vice-President.
“I started looking down the list of PBA board members and
as soon as I came to Marc Kovar’s name, I stopped,” President
Colligan explained. “Usually, there is a succession order and
some time to make this choice. We don’t have that. We’re in the
biggest fight in the history of the NJ State PBA, and I knew with
the amount of time Marc devotes to the organization, he would
get in the fight as quickly as possible.”
No reason to pull punches
Nobody gets to such a lofty position in the state’s most powerful union without the good fortune of having somebody
mentor them. Kovar counts several advisors/counselors/tutors
on this list, from Tony Wieners and Keith Dunn to former PBA
President Mike Madonna to current NJ State PBA Special ProjCONTINUED ON PAGE 36