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April 4, 2006 - Dennis Arouca is president, co-managing partner and an owner of the Rockford RiverHawks (www.rockfordriverhawks.com). The RiverHawks, located in the Rockford, Ill. metro area, play a 96-game schedule in the Frontier League of Professional Baseball. Arouca is also a member of the board of directors for the Frontier League. The Frontier League (www.frontierleague.com) is an independent league of 10 teams, located in metropolitan areas of America’s heartland, from Pittsburgh (Washington, Pa.) in the east to St. Louis (Gateway [Sauget, Ill.] and River City [O’Fallon, Mo.]) on the west, including Cincinnati (Florence, Ky.), Chicago (Windy City [Crestwood]), Chillicothe, Ohio, Evansville, Ind. and Kalamazoo and Traverse City, Mich.
The RiverHawks have been winners on the field in each year of their tenure, including a Frontier League Championship in 2004. The RiverHawks have sent seven players to contracts with Major League Baseball clubs, as well as front-office staff to work for the Chicago Cubs and Arizona Diamondbacks and a clubhouse attendant to the Colorado Rockies. In May of 2006, the RiverHawks will open their new, state-of-the art stadium on Rockford’s fast-growing east side, just off Interstate 90 and Riverside Boulevard. The stadium will have 4,000 seats and the amenities today’s families seek for their entertainment: modern concessions, 30-foot wide concourse, team store, a Kids Zone, festival suites, beer garden, family restrooms, and a video scoreboard and message system.
In his professional life, Arouca has been a senior business executive, attorney and investor, with a track record of improving business performance through a firm’s people, most recently as Vice President Human Resources for the Americas for Exide Technologies, a $2.5 billion revenue manufacturer and distributor of lead acid batteries. Arouca was part of the executive team—Vice President Labor Relations – at Conrail, a $3 billion freight railroad, and the most successful turnaround/privatization/IPO in U.S. business history.
Arouca started his professional career as an attorney, for Conrail and then later as a partner with the large, international firm of Pepper, Hamilton and Scheetz, where he represented businesses in governmental regulatory, human-resource and related business matters. Arouca also served on the board of directors for Philadelphia Gas Works, a $500 million utility, as Vice President People Services for United Airlines, and as a member of the faculty at Lake Forest Graduate School of Management.
Throughout his career, Arouca maintained active involvement in sports. Arouca was part owner of the Charleston (WV) Alley Cats, a single A affiliate of the Toronto Blue Jays playing in the South Atlantic League. During Arouca’s tenure, Charleston built a new, state-of-the-art $22 million ballpark, and the team is now known as the West Virginia Power. Arouca’s involvement in baseball began more than 10 years ago when he organized the Traverse Baseball Committee, a broad-based business, governmental and civic effort to bring professional baseball to the Grand Traverse Bay region of northern Michigan as part of a regional recreation facility development. That effort helped lead to the Traverse City Beach Bums of the Frontier League, who will begin play in 2006. Arouca also served on the Board of Directors of the Philadelphia Sports Congress, a private-public sector partnership, which brings sports events to the region for economic development and quality of life; for example, the Army-Navy Football Festival, the Major League Baseball All-Star Game, NCAA Basketball Final Four and Regionals, U.S. Figure Skating Championships, ESPN’s X Games and the Dad Vail Regatta.
Arouca, his wife Anne, and their two boys live in Wilmette, Illinois, a northern suburb of Chicago. Arouca is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst (B.A.), Temple University School of Law (J.D.), and the Advanced Management Program of the Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania. He is a member of the Board of Visitors for Temple University Law School.
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