A resident of Nyack since 1981, Mayor Kavesh was born in Brookline, Massachusetts in 1952 and grew up in Montclair, New Jersey, where he attended and graduated from the public schools. He first became involved in politics during the 1960 presidential campaign of another Brookline native – John F. Kennedy.

Among the jobs that Mayor Kavesh has held are Congressional Page in the U.S. House of Representatives (1968); enumerator for the U.S. Census Bureau (1970); intern in the office of U.S. Representative Abner J. Mikva (1971); and news editor at WRKL Radio (1991 – 1993). Between the years of 1977 and 2000 Mayor Kavesh held a number of positions in the field of diagnostic imaging, promoted to the positions of Director, International Operations at Matrix Corporation (Orangeburg, New York) and Vice President, Sales and Marketing at DICOMIT Imaging Systems (Toronto).

Mayor Kavesh has been a public school teacher in the Bronx since 2001, when he was accepted as a New York City Teaching Fellow. He currently teaches Global History and Government at the Bronx School of Law and Finance.

Mayor Kavesh holds a B.A. degree in Government from Hamilton College (1973), a M.S. from the Columbia University School of Journalism (1990), and an M.A. in Education from New York University (2003). He was first elected to the Nyack Village Board as a Trustee in the year 2000, served as a Trustee for nine years, and was elected Mayor of Nyack in November, 2009.