Salvatore LaRocca
New York, NY – The Board of Trustees of La Salle Academy, East Village, N.Y., has unanimously voted to elect Salvatore LaRocca ’82 as Chairman, replacing Valentine Lehr ’58, who will finish his 8-year-tenure in this role on June 30, 2017.
LaRocca will move into the chairmanship in the 2017-18 academic year, capping off a 2-year stint as Vice Chairman of the Board of Trustees. LaRocca will guide La Salle – the third oldest all-boys Catholic high school in New York City – into its next phase of academic and financial growth alongside the school’s President, Dr. Catherine Guerriero, and Principal, Kerry Conroy.
LaRocca is the President of Global Partnerships at the National Basketball Association in New York City and leads a team that is responsible for the management of the NBA’s global merchandising and marketing partnerships.
“La Salle Academy instilled in me the values that have guided me through life, and I’m honored for the opportunity to serve my alma mater,” said LaRocca. “The school is once again on the rise, and our community owes a debt of gratitude for that to current Board Chair Valentine Lehr.” As La Salle’s new Chairman, LaRocca will govern the Board of Trustees to secure La Salle’s viability. As La Salle approaches the halfway mark of its 15-year lease with St. George’s Academy, discussions regarding La Salle’s move back to 2nd Street are underway.
“La Salle was successfully pulled from the brink of closure in 2009 under Lehr’s direction and in the last three years, La Salle has experienced major increases in student enrollment, academic programming and fundraising,” said Brother Thomas Scanlan FSC, La Salle Board Trustee and Manhattan College president emeritus. “La Salle’s resurgence can be attributed to Val’s brilliant and steady leadership,”
Valentine Lehr
Brother Scanlan is also the Auxiliary Visitor of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, District of Eastern North America, which sponsors and operates La Salle Academy, the oldest continuously operating Lasallian School. Since 1848, the Christian Brothers have been caring for the spiritual and temporal educational needs of young men from poor and troubled families — a charge issued to them by St. John Baptist de La Salle, the founder of the order in the late 17th century.
“I’m committed to La Salle Academy’s mission of developing young men academically, socially, athletically and, spiritually,” LaRocca said. “I will do everything to ensure that our noble traditions continue for another 169 years and beyond.”
Both Lehr and LaRocca represent the very best of the thousands of great young men that La Salle Academy has produced over the last sixty years, according to Dr. Guerriero.
“I have had the great good fortune and personal blessing to be President under the stellar leadership of Val these last several years. Now, with Sal coming in as Board Chair next year, we are all pinching ourselves. Sal LaRocca is going to lead La Salle Academy places that we can’t even fathom. It’s happening. It’s real. I can’t wait,” Dr. Guerriero said.