Stadium district leader Duckett to retire
The organization that oversees American Family Field — formerly Miller Park — said Thursday that executive director Mike Duckett is retiring at the end of this month.
Duckett has been executive director of the Southeast Wisconsin Professional Baseball Park District for 25 years.
Duckett, a civil engineer with more than 30 years of construction project planning experience, was hired in 1995 to oversee the project to replace the old Milwaukee County Stadium.
“Duckett kept the five-year, $392 million project under budget, with the 0.1% ballpark sales tax being retired last year,” the ballpark district said in a statement announcing Duckett’s retirement.
Don Smiley, the chairman of the ballpark district board, called Duckett’s tenure “an amazing run.”
“Thanks to his incredible business acumen, prudent fiscal sense and unequaled management and relationship skills, Miller Park and now American Family Field is recognized as a worldclass ballpark,” Smiley said in the statement.
Smiley also announced that Patrick Goss will become the new executive director of the ballpark district.
Goss currently is executive director of the Wisconsin Transportation Builders Association.
Goss has previously been the executive director of the Wisconsin Asphalt Pavement Association, deputy secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, director of government affairs for the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce, president of the Wisconsin Sports Development Corporation and deputy secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Tourism, among other positions.
Goss’ tenure as executive director will begin on April 1.