He was born in 1953 in Miastko to a working-class family.[2] In 1978 he graduated from agricultural economics at the Agricultural University in Szczecin.[2] He has also completed postgraduate studies of rural sociology and agriculture at the Warsaw University of Life Sciences.[2] He completed research internships in Heidelberg and at the Faculty of Political Science and Journalism at the University of Warsaw.[2] Since 1978 he was working for Agricultural University in Szczecin.[2] In 1982 he obtained a PhD at the University of Silesia.[2]
In the years 1994-1998 he chaired the Self-Government Assembly of the Szczecin Province.[2] He was a co-founder and the first president of the Euregion Pomerania.[3] From 1995 to 1998, he worked as the editor-in-chief of Przegląd Samorządowy.[2] In 1998 he was elected the first marshal of the West Pomeranian Voivodeship and he was until 2000.[2] From 1 July to 31 December 1999 he was the chairman of the Convent of Marshals of the Voivodeships of the Republic of Poland.[2][4] In the years 1999-2000 he was the co-chairman of the Polish-German Committee for Cross-Border Cooperation, and until January 2000 – co-chairman of the Government-Self-Government Team for Regional Policy, Spatial Development and Environmental Protection.[2]
From 1995 to 2001 he was a member of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg.[2] In March 2000, he became an advisor for local government affairs to the President of the Republic of Poland, he held this position until assuming the mandate of a senator.[2]
He belonged to the Polish United Workers' Party and was a member of the Social Democracy of the Republic of Poland. He was a member of the Democratic Left Alliance, and a member of the Provincial Board of that party.[2]
In the Senate, he worked in the following committees: Local Government and State Administration, Foreign Affairs and European Integration and in the Extraordinary Committee of European Legislation.[2]
Zychowicz died in a hospital in Szczecin on January 6, 2016, at the age of 62.[5][6][7]
