The 2008 season will mark the 16th year in professional baseball (12th at the Advanced Class-A level) for Salem Avalanche Vice President / General Manager, John Katz. After spending the prior nine seasons in the California League with the Modesto A’s (1997 – 2001) and the Stockton Ports (2001 – 2005), Katz, moved from the West Coast to the Southeast to take his position with the Avalanche in November of 2005. He was named the California League’s Outstanding General Manager in 1999 after his first season as GM in Modesto, and was the Cal League’s Executive of the Year in 2000. He was also named the Carolina League’s Executive of the Year in 2006 after his first season with the Avalanche.

Prior to joining the Modesto A’s front office in 1997, Katz, a Boston native, served as a Marketing and Operations Coordinator in the Arizona Fall League (1993), and with the Carolina Mudcats as Director of Marketing and Media Relations (1994-1996). He holds a BBA in Marketing with a minor in Print Journalism from Hofstra University (Hempstead, NY), and refuses to accept his alma mater’s new mascot. He graduated a Flying Dutchman, and that’s how he refers to the University!

Katz, 37, was part of the team that opened a fully renovated John Thurman Field in Modesto in 1997. He was also part of the Stockton Ports franchise that designed, built and opened the first new California League North Division ballpark to be constructed in over a half-century.

He serves as a board member of the Roanoke Valley Convention and Visitors Bureau, and is a member of the Rotary Club of Salem. Katz will be installed as a Board Member of the Salem / Roanoke County Chamber of Commerce in January of 2008. He enjoys coaching youth T-Ball and Soccer for his sons’ teams, and gets out on his Harley-Davidson FLHX whenever he can.

An ardent Red Sox fan, Katz still can’t comprehend the fact that his late grandfather never got to see his beloved Sox win a World Series in his lifetime, yet it has happened twice in the lives of his three children.

Katz and his wife, Anne, have three children – twin boys (6) and a daughter (4). They make their home in Roanoke, VA.