LOCKPORT — Fourth Ward Alderman-elect Tyler Kossow may be the youngest elected official in City of Tonawanda history.

But if experience has anything to do with it, one of the city’s newest council members will be bringing a lot to the table.

"It started out as just a thought. As the closing on my house came closer I thought about what it was all about. When I was in school I was always involved. Once I started working I didn’t have all those side projects. I love being connected,” he said.

In his one-story home on Prospect Avenue, a large painting called “Chess Game” by F. Beda — showing several Victorian-era maidens playing chess with a man donning a period-appropriate wig — hangs on the living room wall just above an Xbox 360 video game console.

Like many his age, the popular game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare has its draw.

But there’s an air of both youth and competence about Kossow that’s reinforced by his resume. As a logistical coordinator for a major shipping company called Speed Global Services of Kenmore, the Niagara University graduate who majored in logistics and international business likes seeing the big picture.

At 23, Kossow has indeed seen his share of it.

He traveled the world before purchasing his first home last year at 22 years old, and now manages supply-chain logistics for a global company in addition to holding elected office.

Oh, and the former college athlete started his own business, a Web site called www.leaguehound.com aimed to connect working people like himself to local league play. So it’s no surprise he has his opinions about improving the city’s Web site, as well.

At work, he said he strives to find ways to improve or maintain employee satisfaction among his many other duties. The parallels, he said, are evident in local government as well.

“If (residents) can enjoy where they’re living that makes the whole community a better place,” he said.

Time spent studying abroad in Dublin, Rome and Paris while in college led to further travels and volunteer work in places far away from the tourist destinations most experience. Kossow, in just a few short years, went on to continue his education in China and Japan, largely relying on scholarships to fund each trip.

He told a story about helping out at a shelter for homeless alcoholics in Dublin. The recollection is still enough to inspire some emotion.

“It wasn’t just taking pictures and going places it was meeting people and understanding people and cultures,” he said of his travels. “That to me is more important than a picture of the Colosseum or the Eiffel Tower.”

But most importantly, he said, it helped him to see that “big picture” he and everyone else is always talking about.

Prompted to tie his observations abroad to local affairs, Kossow passionately discussed the rather limited availability of public transportation in this area, as opposed to, say, Europe.

But locally, he said his No. 1 priority  is helping to usher new business to the former Spaulding Fibre property — which has served as little more than a monument to abandonment his entire life.

With the city having already begun transforming the large plot into a business park for light industry, Kossow said he’s thrilled by the opportunity to bring the vision full circle.

“You can’t actually see a structure there but you know it’s coming,” he said as site work has already begun to install curbs, a roadway and below-ground infrastructure at the site.

“My entire life I’ve driven by there. I asked ‘what’s that? It’s Spaulding Fibre. What did they do? They made chemicals. What is it now? Nothing,” he said. “That’s been the extent of the conversation my whole life.”

Kossow, who ran on the Democratic, Conservative and Working Familes lines won a convincing election against Dennis Kluge last month to fill the Fourth Ward seat vacated by incumbent Bill Poole.

The son of former Alderman James Kossow, who once represented the Second Ward, Kossow has roots in the community.

His mother grew up two doors down from his new home. He credited his late grandfather, Louis Kossow, for helping him purchase the home from a family acquaintance. The World War II veteran who survived a car and plane crash in his life also instilled in him a love for people — starting every story with “I once knew a guy,” he said fondly.

Louis Kossow died recently. He was 91. But not before getting the chance to pull the lever for his grandson in this year’s primary. Actually, it was in the form of an absentee ballot he filled out before he passed away just two days before the polls opened.

But it’s no legacy that drove Kossow to run for office, he said. The young man who ran and won on a platform of youth, sound decision making and his people skills said he never intended to stay in the city, but made the decision only after courting half of the world.

One thing he said he’s learned is that many of his constituents grew up here, moved away and then returned to the area, apparently for something they couldn’t find elsewhere.

In that regard, Kossow isn’t much different.

“I had no intention of purchasing a home in the City of Tonawanda — I wanted to see the world — but like I heard so many others say, Tonawanda is always going to be home.”