Superintendent of Building and Grounds
Know Your Pelicans
As the Superintendent of Building and Grounds, what do you do for Packer?
My job is to make sure Packer is safe, runs smoothly, and looks its best.
Tell us about a specific time you found your job especially rewarding.
The senior class dedicated the yearbook to me in 2002. It was quite a surprise. It goes to show you that even though you may not be in the classroom you can still make connections with the students that are meaningful. Saying good morning or asking how someone is feeling means a lot to people. Every time I bump into a former student, after I find out what they’ve been up to, the conversation quickly turns to how the Yankees or the Rangers are playing. It’s pretty much just a continuation of our last conversation, which could have been many years ago. I’ve worked at Packer for a long time now and I’ve seen kids I knew in Middle School returning with children of their own. I can’t walk the streets of Brooklyn without meeting someone I know from Packer. I don’t think that there are many schools where the students and parents know the members of the Operations Staff as well as they do at Packer. Those relationships are very rewarding.
What is something that most Packer people wouldn’t know about you?
After I leave Packer I am on a baseball diamond just about every day. I coach both my sons in Little League, District All-Stars and Travel Baseball. I’ve coached them since they were four-year-old tee-ball players. I donate a lot of my time to my town’s Little League whether it’s getting the fields ready, putting up fences, mowing the grass, filing papers, making food in the snack shack, or just throwing batting practice all day. We pretty much live at the field from March to November. It’s good for us to give back and my sons get to learn valuable lessons from playing and helping out. Baseball is like life: you’re going to fail sometimes but it’s how you adjust to those failures that make you a better player or person. I love coaching not for the wins and losses but for the lessons I teach my players and the lessons they teach me. Most of those lessons have nothing to do with baseball.
If you could have any superpower, what would it be and why?
I have many superpowers but if I reveal them my enemies will quickly destroy me and Earth as we know it may never be the same.