Two Florida men contributing to aid efforts in Haiti, including one with Kenosha ties, were killed Thursday night when their helicopter crashed into a mountain in neighboring Dominican Republic.

James Jalovec, 53, of Naples, Fla., the owner of the Kenosha Ice Rink, 7727 60th Ave., was co-pilot of the craft that crashed in the western Dominican province of Dajabon.

Pilot John Ward, 43, of Fort Myers, Fla., and Jalovec were returning from Haiti that night when their R44 II helicopter crashed into a mountain, said Dominican Civil Aviation Institute spokesman Pedro Jimenez.

Family members in Florida confirmed the men’s identities.

Local ice rink staff confirmed he was still the owner of the facility and had visited Kenosha just a week ago. They were informed of his death on Friday morning.

Jalovec, a former Franklin, Wis., businessman, purchased the Kenosha Ice Rink from Kenosha County in 2003. Jalovec closed on the arena in March of that year, purchasing the aging facility from the county for $358,000 after a five-month sale process that at times proved contentious.

He promised to renovate the arena and in June 2003 detailed plans that, under one scenario, included adding an indoor soccer complex to the building. At the very least, Jalovec said at the time, he planned to pour $500,000 into the ice arena, a proposal that included expanding and upgrading locker rooms and restrooms, and adding new concession areas and a mezzanine with meeting space.

However, within months, Jalovec scrapped the soccer complex proposal. It proved too costly, as quotes came back closer to $4 million than the $1.5 million he initially forecast.

“We were way, way, way off,’“ Jalovec said at the time. “I wish it could have happened.”

In 2005, Jalovec purchased a franchise to compete in Kenosha in the Great Lakes Hockey League, a 10-team league featuring players with either Division-1 or 3 college, minor professional, Junior A or top-level high school experience. The Kenosha Knights were set up with a short exhibition schedule, and were to begin a 30-game full league schedule for the 2006-07 season. Some games and promotion nights were held through December 2006. However, the team folded soon afterward.

Jalovec sold his Trees On the Move landscaping business in New Berlin in 2005 and moved to the Boca Raton area of Florida.

Jalovec’s son Mark, 21, of Boynton Beach, Fla., said his father and Ward were friends, and wanted to do what they could to help the victims of the 7.0-magnitude earthquake that devastated Haiti last month.

“He said, ‘I’m a guy. I have a helicopter. I can go there and do something, rather than just give my credit card number to someone,”’ Mark Jalovec said.

James Jalovec, most recently the owner of a sewage-hauling company, contacted a group of Wisconsin doctors who frequently traveled to Haiti and flew several of them into the Dominican Republic over the weekend, his son said.

“It was a pretty risky thing,” Mark Jalovec said. “Everybody who knew he was going down there had fear that something bad was going to happen.”

One of the firefighters at the scene, Angel Belliard, said emergency responders found medicine scattered around the crash site.

In addition to his son Mark, Jalovec is survived by a son Phil, 24, and a daughter, Jamie, 18.