Oct. 20, 2006
Vince Naimoli/Kevin White Press Conference –
NOTRE DAME, Ind. – Vincent J. Naimoli, chairman of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays Major League Baseball franchise and a 1959 University of Notre Dame graduate, has made a $5 million gift toward the planned $24.7 million renovation of the Joyce Center arena.
Naimoli’s contribution is part of the $22 million worth of gifts announced earlier this month for the Joyce Center project. Work on that renovation will begin after the project is completely funded and designed.
The new club/hospitality area in the Joyce Center, as well as two outdoor patios that will be part of the new construction, will be named for the Naimoli family. Expected to include approximately 16,500 square feet, the club area will include space for more than 750 spectators, plus concessions, restrooms and food service areas.
The Joyce Center has been home to Irish basketball and volleyball as well as University commencement, a wide variety of concerts, and other University and civic events since its opening in 1968. The planned renovation includes new chair back seating from top to bottom, a stadium club/hospitality area, new concession areas and restrooms, increased handicapped seating options and a new, two-story addition on the south end of the current structure, to include new ticket offices, a new varsity shop for souvenir and apparel sales, a new main entrance and lobby, and the hospitality area.
Naimoli is credited with bringing baseball to the Tampa Bay region as the former managing general partner, chief executive officer and principal owner of the Devil Rays. Tampa Bay was awarded a franchise in 1995 and began competition in 1998. In 2005 he transitioned to the position of chairman and still retains his original percentage ownership of the team.
Naimoli forged a naming-rights deal with Tropicana Products that enabled the city of St. Petersburg and the team to receive payments worth tens of millions of dollars over the life of the contract, and he and fellow Rays owners paid for improvements at Tropicana Field, the team’s training complex and the club’s spring stadium, Florida Power Park. He insisted that Tropicana Field’s design reflect baseball traditions, among them asymmetrical outfield dimensions, seats close to the action, and dirt base paths. He let innovation enhance that traditional feel by arranging the purchase of a then-revolutionary grasslike playing surface, FieldTurf, for the air-conditioned dome before the 2000 season. In addition to serving on various MLB committees (including the Equal Opportunity, Legislative Affairs, International and World Baseball Classic committees), he was named in 1999 to the Blue Ribbon Task Force on Baseball Economics, whose recommendations addressed longstanding problems.
As CEO of Anchor Industries International, Naimoli was voted 1995 Florida Entrepreneur of the Year in the “turnaround” category. In 1999 he joined First Lady Hillary Clinton, Senator John Glenn and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court William Rehnquist in receiving the Ellis Island Medal of Honor from the National Ethnic Coalition of Organizations. He also has served on financial and athletic committees at alma mater Notre Dame, chaired the University of Tampa Board of Trustees, and serves on the board at Fairleigh Dickinson University, where he earned an MBA magna cum laude before completing Harvard Business School’s advanced management program in 1974. He’s also on the board of overseers of the New Jersey Institute of Technology (he graduated from NJIT in 1962).
In 1992, creditors appointed Naimoli a director and later CEO of Harvard Industries, only one month after the company emerged from bankruptcy reorganization. A year later, the company attained almost $7 million in earnings — up from a loss of $131 million a year earlier. Doehler-Jarvis Inc., North America’s largest independent manufacturer of aluminum castings, was preparing to file for bankruptcy in 1991 when Naimoli took control of the company. In 1992, the company lost $29 million and in 1993 it had profits of $10 million. Naimoli also served as CEO of Ladish, Inc., in its turnaround.
Naimoli has been involved in many charitable projects throughout the Tampa Bay area. He enlisted the Devil Rays in Major League Baseball’s RBI Program (Reviving Baseball in the Inner Cities) and is the driving force behind the establishment of the team’s own charitable foundation called the Tampa Bay Rays of Hope Foundation.
As a long-time resident of Tampa, Naimoli received the very first “Bridging the Bay” award in 1996, recognizing him as the individual who has done the most to unite the citizens of Hillsborough and Pinellas counties. He also has received similar community service awards from the Urban League, the Jewish National Fund, the Tampa Sports Club, Boys and Girls Clubs and the Multiple Sclerosis Society. He received an honorary monogram from the Notre Dame Monogram Club in 1999.
One of four children of a second-generation Italian immigrant who worked for the New York subway system and became a self-taught stationary engineer, Naimoli graduated from Notre Dame in 1959 out of Paterson (N.J.) Central High School. He still attends Irish athletic events regularly with his wife, Lenda, who retired as an Eastern Airlines flight attendant after 24 years and who has an identical twin, Mrs. J.E. (Glenda) Young. He has four daughters — Christine, an Arizona State graduate; Tory Ann Jarvis, Stephens College and Kellogg Graduate School alumna; Alyson, a ’94 Notre Dame graduate; and Lindsey, a `05 Notre Dame graduate.