Of all the adjectives used to describe Gene Duvernoy, "pragmatic" seems to rise to the top.

Just ask those who work for the president of the nonprofit Cascade Land Conservancy and those who, ostensibly, are his enemies. Duvernoy craves solutions, not problems. You never walk into his office with a problem without already having thought of a possible solution, says his chief of staff, Natalie Cheel.

Unlike more traditional environmental activists, he doesn't vilify developers, focusing instead on what makes sense in a given situation. "I'm a developer; I should be his archenemy," says Peter Orser, president of Quadrant Homes, but Duvernoy "listens to all of those perspectives. He seems to operate at a higher level that tries to take the best from all the different influences on a particular outcome."

He controls his ego, which, for better or worse, is always a factor when you're running an organization, one that has -- directly or indirectly -- shielded some 140,000 acres of land from development in western Washington since 1989. "He's not a high-ego guy," Orser says. "He's smart, and he's got a command of a lot of facts."

Duvernoy, who has led the organization since 1991, avoids environmental dogma, favoring instead market-based solutions that account for the need to both build houses for people and conserve greenbelts. "He's absolutely a pragmatist," says Seattle developer Bruce Blume, founder and chief executive of The Blume Co. and one of many advisers to the Cascade Land Conservancy.

Duvernoy's accomplishments alone are enough to thrust him into the spotlight. Consider the numbers recently posted by the Cascade Land Conservancy: In 2007 alone, it protected 1,452 acres in King, Kittitas, Pierce and Snohomish counties; earlier this year, it secured roughly $493,000 in federal grant money for the care and restoration of urban forests in Seattle and Tacoma; currently, the nonprofit is advancing some 250 conservation projects and is spearheading a new regional marketplace to trade development rights for the protection of farms, forests and other natural areas.

The Cascade Land Conservancy's ultimate goal is listed in its 100- year plan, "The Cascade Agenda": to conserve 1.3 million acres of farmland, forests, parks and natural areas. And, as the 55-year-old Duvernoy emphatically puts it, "we're going to do it."

It is instructive, however, to understand why Duvernoy does what he does. For Duvernoy, conserving land and making cities more livable isn't a matter of setting a goal and accomplishing it; it's a matter of fulfilling a difficult, complicated, lifelong mission. "You can't be in this business if you're a pessimist," he says.

Duvernoy grew up in a family of six children in New York, spending time in both Manhattan and Long Island. He loved nature when he was a boy. He would chase butterflies with a net, prompting his siblings to call him "bug boy."

His first experience with environmental politics came in the early 1970s when he was exposed to the fledgling environmental movement as a student at Carnegie Mellon University. "We were all very public-spirited," he says. Carnegie Mellon gave Duvernoy what he wanted most: a highly rigorous, nonideological education. "It spoke to the way I want to see the world," he says. After graduating with a double major in civil engineering and public affairs, he went on to earn law and business degrees from Cornell University.

In 1980, he arrived in Seattle, not for work but to help a brother build a sailboat. Immediately, Seattle felt like home. Duvernoy worked in King County government for a time, managing farmland preservation and open space projects. Ultimately, he says, he decided he wasn't "cut out for long-term government" work because the gears of progress sometimes ground too slowly.