On Tuesdays while she and other DuPage County commissioners plow through the public side of government, Patricia Trowbridge often studies Jack Knuepfer. A political foe of the enigmatic county board chairman, Trowbridge says she knows Knuepfer all too well. "Jack is a total loner," Trowbridge will say. "He is making all the decisions out of his office. The committee system has become ineffective. He is so clever and he's got it all mastered."

House Minority Leader Lee A. Daniels (R-46, Elmhurst) has a different view. "Good government," Daniels will say when asked about Knuepfer. "That's all and I don't want to sound too patriotic or simplistic or patronizing. I mean I think Jack Knuepfer is committed to good government — period.'' Daniels was president of the Elmhurst Young Republicans and a student at John Marshall Law School when he met Jack Knuepfer more than 20 years ago. They have worked closely together. Frank Bellinger, a 26-year veteran of the DuPage County Board, considers himself "a very strong ally of what Knuepfer's trying to do," but is troubled by the chairman's almost condescending style. "I think he doesn't have as high a regard for people on the county board as they have of themselves," Bellinger says. "Knuepfer thinks of them as too local." That's when he gets in trouble, Bellinger adds. "I'm not going to say they're political hacks, but they are not the most brilliant, farsighted people and Knuepfer is well ahead of them."

What Knuepfer has done is bring to state and national prominence a county that for many years was most famous for Red Grange, Billy Graham, old money and thousands of acres of farmland. Allies revere him as a visionary and the most effective county board chairman in DuPage's history when it comes to getting what his county needs from Springfield. Opponents tag him as the "Mayor Daley of the suburbs" and revile him as a willful man who guides a meek county board along his agenda.

The new notoriety has plenty of people upset. At least that's how Trowbridge sees it: "I don't dislike Jack, but when I talk to people and I mention Jack Knuepfer to them, they go up in smoke. People that understand government don't want to see it operated in that way. People out here want a quiet community to live in with good schools and very little more than that, but that isn't very exciting for Jack."

With such different opinions of his style and motives, it's little wonder that Knuepfer is controversial. Blushing just a bit and flashing a sly smile, he sits back and laughs when confronted with a former county commissioner's perception that Knuepfer is the "Mayor Daley of the suburbs." "I've never heard that one before," he says. He may not have heard the precise title, but all conversations about Jack Knuepfer at some point turn to his power.

"Jack has the power he has because the board allows him to," Trowbridge maintains. "That's not necessarily Jack's fault. That's the board's fault. The board's too weak and people will take what they're allowed to."

Like many Knuepfer critics, Trowbridge charges that he deliberately leaves the board and the public in the dark until he absolutely needs their support or until he has conspired privately with enough sympathetic and mild-mannered commissioners to guarantee a plan's success. As examples, Trowbridge cites Knuepfer's near-miss in bringing the Chicago White Sox to DuPage County last year and on-again, off-again talk that the Chicago Bears will be moving to DuPage. "He was having all kinds of talks and negotiations, and the board didn't even know about it," Trowbridge claims.

Trowbridge's assessment is corroborated by a former insider. Michael Linz now spends his days serving on a county panel examining local government structure, researching various political concerns and mastering a computerized chess game. In April Linz finished a 10-year stint as Knuepfer's executive assistant. He hints that Trowbridge may be on target. "He's not a recluse," Linz says. "It's just that when he is contemplating putting together political objectives, he keeps his thought processes and the evaluation of the idea to himself. He generally seeks reaction when it is just about totally developed and he begins to need support for it."

Yet Linz casts an admiring eye toward his former boss. "They say Knuepfer is power hungry," Linz says, "but I don't think Knuepfer is the sort of person who gets turned on by power. He likes power just for what it allows him to accomplish. He's not cuddly, but he gets things done," Linz says, "and with style. He's a moving target."

DuPage County's leaders in Springfield dismiss allegations of Knuepfer power plays. House Minority Leader Daniels sees him as an effective, not strong-armed, county board chairman who "understands the legislature and the process." Daniels says Knuepfer is noncommunicative only because he is busy: "Anytime you have somebody that's strong and effective, you'll have detractors that will be critical." Senate Minority Leader James "Pate" Philip (R-23, Wood Dale) characterizes complaints about Knuepfer's power as sour grapes. "These are people that, no matter if he talked to them or not, they wouldn't vote with him anyway," Philip says.

In his typically deflective style with the press, Knuepfer will sidestep discussion of his power on the county board and in Springfield. He is uncomfortable talking about himself. "All the power in DuPage County, if you toss it all on one person, it doesn't equal the power of a third-level bureaucrat in Washington," Knuepfer says. "I try to get things done. That means doing as you do in business — you set goals and work at them. You get people together and say, 'This is what it is. Let's go.'" On the surface, Knuepfer's tall, lean frame topped with pushed-back grey hair conjures images of an easygoing, absentminded professor. The stairwells of DuPage Center often echo with his whistling as he briskly walks from office to office. He has on occasion walked up to reporters and begun issuing orders, only to discover that he has mistaken one for a member of his public information staff. Below that exterior lurks a quick mind that generally operates two or three speeds ahead of everyone else in the room, and a decisive, almost ruthless psyche. "He can be brutal when it becomes necessary," Linz observes. The former executive assistant recalls two former department directors who crossed Knuepfer. He would routinely refuse to sign grant applications for one and declined to rescue another who was being brutally cross-examined by commissioners on a regular basis. Both left the county in a matter of months after Knuepfer targeted them.

Knuepfer's honesty is unchallenged. He is "fundamentally honest," Linz says, but demands total loyalty from his staff. Nowhere will you hear that Jack Knuepfer is lining his own comfortable nest as county board chairman — not even from Patricia Trowbridge. His motivation, though, remains a matter of some debate. "He was an ineffective legislator because he was a loner," Trowbridge alleges, "and what he did was get in this position [as county board chairman], and he can pass legislation. He gets to do what he wants, when he wants and where he wants. I think he finds this fun."

Bellinger falls in line with Daniels' theory that Knuepfer is simply motivated by civic pride and duty. "Jack wants what's best in the long run for DuPage County," Bellinger says, "and he wants to leave some mark on the history of the county. I see nothing else."

Linz takes yet another view: "I think the maneuvering and manipulation that is an integral part of the political process as it is played in DuPage County and in parts of this country, turns him on," Linz says. "He may get rebuffed at the county board level, and he keeps that fixed smile on his face, and reporters ask him about it, and he just brushes it off. But, once that day passes, he begins to look for openings in the enemy flank, searching for a way to get it done anyway."

"I don't think he likes to lose," Linz adds. "He never accepts defeat. He suffers them but doesn't believe they are final. I guess in his world there is always tomorrow." Knuepfer characterizes his success in Springfield as ''a mixed bag." He remembers his days in Springfield as a state representative and then senator as "lean years" for Republicans serving under Democratic governors, but relationships forged then help him now.

"I am certain that Lee [Daniels] and Pate [Philip] are very important components of that. On top of that I have a lot of friends, both Republicans and Democrats, left in Springfield. Also, what I ask for usually doesn't cost the state of Illinois anything. It doesn't cost any other county in Illinois. Most of it is authorizing us to do something. That way, you're not perceived as draining their funds."

One camp calls Knuepfer's power dictatorial. Another maintains it is nothing more than his effectiveness in Wheaton and Springfield, where most say the key to his success is a thorough knowledge of the process and the players. The perceptions of the man may differ, but the results are obvious. Knuepfer has in the last four years racked up an impressive list of achievements for DuPage County, including:

• Corralling $125 million in state road money for DuPage County. The money originally was targeted for the cancelled Crosstown Expressway, then for the estimated-$450-million North-South Toll way. Knuepfer helped orchestrate the plan under which the Illinois Toll Highway Authority built the North-South Tollway, and the state agreed to channel $125 million in ongoing construction funds to DuPage County for work on state roads.

• Financing a $350-million Lake Michigan water pipeline that officials say will allow DuPage to continue growing at a rapid pace.

• Convincing state lawmakers to enact a quarter-of-a-percent county sales tax that will generate more than $12 million a year. Knuepfer is using the money to build an estimated $50 million county courthouse.

• Obtaining $3 million in state funds to start Knuepfer's pet project, a "high-tech" DuPage graduate school that specializes in physics and math research. Gov. James R. Thompson's drastic budget cuts have left funding uncertain, however.

• Taking control of the DuPage County Airport, which Knuepfer wrested from surrounding Kane County towns by receiving legislative approval to make the majority of appointments to the airport's governing board. Knuepfer reportedly wants to expand the airport, making DuPage even more appealing to businesses. An amendatory veto of the legislation by Gov. James R. Thompson September 24 increases the size of the board to 11 from 9 and requires a super majority vote of 10-1 to expand runways by more than 5,500 feet or to increase runway weight capacity to more than 55,000 pounds. Both are major elements to any expansion. Knuepfer still has authority to appoint eight of the 11 members of the airport's governing board.

• Releasing in late August an 11-page booklet, "Does 37 cents Make Sense?" The report claims that Illinois returns 37 cents of each 90 cents in taxes DuPage sends to Springfield and is meant to shatter DuPage's image of affluence and economic growth. The strategy is to prod legislators into funneling more money to DuPage, which still leads northwest suburban Cook County in average per capita income by nearly $600 a year. "All of these things are happening because you've got a guy in charge whose got a grasp on things," Linz says, "and my impression is that the board members sort of wait for him to act and then they react."

Claude Knuepfer's son demonstrated in his teens that he was the kind of fellow who would find a way to get his way. Born in Chicago to a family that operated a machinery business, Knuepfer graduated from Oak Park River Forest High School in 1938 and headed north to attend Carleton College in Northfield, Minn.

When World War II broke out, Knuepfer feared his age would prevent him from getting to the front lines immediately. He quit school, joined the American Field Service and drove a British Army ambulance in Egypt. After two years of transporting wounded British soldiers, Knuepfer enlisted in the U.S. Army and served until 1947. During that time, he was given two battlefield commissions, which means he commanded troops in battle without attending officers' training school. Knuepfer declines to talk about this achievement and refuses to allow his campaign literature to include references to it.

He returned to the states in 1947, but his best friend did not. While consoling the friend's young widow, whom Knuepfer knew from high school, the two fell in love and were married. "Dinny," a childhood slur of her given name, Virginia, has been married to Jack Knuepfer for nearly 40 years. The couple has raised five children, including one from her first marriage. She is said to be a woman who tolerates the countless social functions and is actively involved in charities and civic organizations.

A member of the Young Republicans, Knuepfer first sought political office in 1954 after earning some local fame for discovering that the developer of his Elmhurst subdivision had caused flooding by using undersized sewer lines. Elected to the Elmhurst City Council, he left politics four years later to attend to the family business.

In 1964 state legislators were unable to agree on reapportionment boundaries, and Knuepfer was endorsed by the state Republicans' blue-ribbon committee as a candidate for the Illinois House on the unusual "bedsheet" ballot with all legislators running statewide. He won. Two years later he jumped to the Senate, where he served until 1974. His biggest accomplishments, he recalls, were writing the Illinois Water Pollution Control Act and the Illinois Certificate of Need, a set of criteria governing major hospital expansions throughout the state.

Philip, then a freshman member of the House, remembers Knuepfer's squeaky-clean reputation. The Senate minority leader likes to tell the story of Knuepfer's name coming up during a wire-tapped conversation between shady lobbyists later convicted for bribing legislators. "Don't waste your time with Knuepfer," Philip recalls one lobbyist saying, "he's one of those goddamned do-gooders." Homesick, Knuepfer decided he had had enough of politics and returned home. About four years later, friends convinced him that he was needed in DuPage County. Knuepfer accepted, challenged by what he thought was an unorganized county rife with ineffective leadership.

The private Knuepfer is nearly as enigmatic as the public. He enjoys downhill skiing, annually trekking to Utah, and has skied slopes in Europe. He wakes up at 5:30 every morning and generally walks the family dogs. Knuepfer says he gets to sleep by 10 p.m. He walks the DuPage Prairie Path nearly every day and has been known to drive to the dunes of Indiana and Michigan for an early morning walk before a day's work.

Yet even his long-time working associates seem to have a difficult time getting close to Knuepfer. "I don't know him personally that well," Bellinger says, ''even though I've spent a good deal of time with him. He isn't much for going out with the boys and bending an elbow. He's one of the hardest-working guys I know." Adds Philip, curiously, "He likes to have a drink. He enjoys life. Not a big sports fan; not a golfer. He's one of the hardest-working guys I know."

Linz admits that many people find themselves uncomfortable with Knuepfer. "Knuepfer is a loner," he says. "There aren't many people that I know of that consider themselves as close friends. I think Jack's relationships with people are always very unfulfilled."

A few months ago, just after an unchallenged campaign for his third term as county board chairman, Jack Knuepfer said this stint would probably be his last. He would probably leave in 1990, when his 70 years would catch up to even his energy level. Now, he's not so sure.

"I have some things to do," he says quietly. Among those agenda items are bringing a major sports team to DuPage County, creating a major science museum, building a convention center, establishing a cultural arts center and perhaps a DuPage symphony.

He vehemently maintains that he has no other aspirations than to lead DuPage County for the next four or six years and doesn't like to talk about potential successors to his office. "At some point in time," he said, "I will hang my spikes up, not just yet."

Staff writer Ted Gregory has been covering DuPage County for the Arlington Heights Daily Herald for over two years.