Kankakee County will be searching for an individual to fill a vacant spot on the Kankakee Regional Land Bank Authority board after the recent resignation of Matt Olszewski.

Olszewski, a Kankakee resident, submitted his resignation Oct. 7 to the land bank’s board of directors.

He wrote: “Please accept this letter as my formal resignation from the board of directors of the Kankakee Regional Land Bank Authority, effective immediately. Thank you for the opportunity to have served the board. I wish the authority and its members all the best in their continued efforts to serve the community.”

The KLRBA was formed in 2021 after an intergovernmental agreement between Kankakee County and the city of Kankakee was signed in September 2020. Olszewski was on the board since its inception.

The KLRBA’s focus is to revitalize neighborhoods through acquiring mostly problem properties, which might include tax-delinquent or abandoned homes or buildings.

Lisa Sanford, the land bank board of directors chairwoman, said Olszewski’s service was much appreciated.

“He was invaluable for his knowledge of banking and community development, and those kinds of things, too, which are very helpful,” board member Joe Nugent said.

Olszewski, who graduated from Northwestern University with a degree in economics, has more than three decades of experience in real estate development, bank marketing and lending.

In May, he was promoted to executive vice president and chief operations officer at Peoples Bank of Kankakee County after serving as its senior vice president of lending.

In his new role, Olszewski is overseeing the bank’s lending functions, retail banking, customer service, information technology and investments, according to a May news release from Peoples Bank.

For personal reasons, Olszewski said he had to take something “off my plate.”

In addition to having served on the KLRBA’s board of directors, Olszewski is on the board of the Kankakee Development Corp. and is a past board member of Kankakee School District 111.

“Anything that he does, he wants to pour into it 100%,” Sanford said. “And he knows that with this new [position], he can’t pour into this 100%.”