William Orville DeWitt III is an American baseball executive. He has been the president of the
St. Louis Cardinals
The St. Louis Cardinals are an American professional baseball team based in St. Louis. The Cardinals compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) Central division. Since the 2006 season, the Cardinals ha ...
of
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...
since 2008. He is the son of Cardinals' team owner
William DeWitt Jr. and the grandson of
Bill DeWitt, who owned the
St. Louis Browns
The St. Louis Browns were a Major League Baseball team that originated in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, as the Milwaukee Brewers. A charter member of the American League (AL), the Brewers moved to St. Louis, Missouri, after the 1901 season, where they p ...
and
Cincinnati Reds and was a
protégé of late Cardinal
general manager
A general manager (GM) is an executive who has overall responsibility for managing both the revenue and cost elements of a company's income statement, known as profit & loss (P&L) responsibility. A general manager usually oversees most or all of ...
Branch Rickey.
Early life
DeWitt grew up in
Cincinnati
Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...
but moved to
St. Louis
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...
when his father's ownership group purchased the Cardinals in 1996.
He graduated from the
Taft School
The Taft School is a private, coeducational school located in Watertown, Connecticut, United States. It teaches students in 9th through 12th grades and post-graduates.
About three-quarters of Taft's roughly 600 students live on the school's ...
(1986), earned an
undergraduate degree
An undergraduate degree (also called first degree or simply degree) is a colloquial term for an academic degree earned by a person who has completed undergraduate courses. In the United States, it is usually offered at an institution of higher e ...
from
Yale
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...
(1990) and an
MBA
A Master of Business Administration (MBA; also Master's in Business Administration) is a postgraduate degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration such as accounti ...
from
Harvard Business School (1995).
Between his undergraduate and master's degrees, DeWitt served as an assistant to
William K. Reilly, a former
Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency
The administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency is the head of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and is thus responsible for enforcing the nation's Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, as well as numerous other environ ...
.
St. Louis Cardinals (1996–present)
Before his appointment as Cardinals' president, DeWitt joined the Cardinals and became the head of merchandising in 1996.
He also gained experience in marketing and operational tasks. DeWitt helped develop
Roger Dean Stadium
Roger Dean Stadium (officially known as Roger Dean Chevrolet Stadium) is a baseball stadium located in the Abacoa community of the town of Jupiter, Florida. The stadium was built in 1998, holds 6,871 people, and features luxury sky-box seating, t ...
, the Cardinals'
spring training home in
Jupiter, Florida
Jupiter is the northernmost town in Palm Beach County, Florida, United States. According to the 2020 Census, the town had a population of 61,047 as of April 1, 2020. It is 84 miles north of Miami, and the northernmost community in the Miami met ...
, which opened in 1998.
After becoming the team's senior vice president of business development, he led the design and construction of the Cardinals'
ballpark
A ballpark, or baseball park, is a type of sports venue where baseball is played. The playing field is divided into the infield, an area whose dimensions are rigidly defined, and the outfield, where dimensions can vary widely from place to pla ...
,
Busch Stadium
Busch Stadium (also referred to informally as "New Busch Stadium" or "Busch Stadium III") is a baseball stadium located in St. Louis, Missouri. The stadium serves as the home of the St. Louis Cardinals, the city's Major League Baseball (M ...
, which opened in
2006.
DeWitt's predecessor,
Mark Lamping
Mark Lamping is the current team president of the Jacksonville Jaguars. He was formerly CEO of the MetLife Stadium. Prior to his stint in New York, he was president of the St. Louis Cardinals Major League Baseball team, a post he held from Septembe ...
, left in March 2008 to become the
NFL's
New York Giants president of
New Meadowlands Stadium Company. DeWitt oversees the business operations of the Cardinals, including
sales
Sales are activities related to selling or the number of goods sold in a given targeted time period. The delivery of a service for a cost is also considered a sale.
The seller, or the provider of the goods or services, completes a sale in ...
,
marketing
Marketing is the process of exploring, creating, and delivering value to meet the needs of a target market in terms of goods and services; potentially including selection of a target audience; selection of certain attributes or themes to emph ...
,
finances,
accounting, game-day productions, and other miscellaneous ventures.
He also runs the development of
Ballpark Village, a 100,000-square-foot retail development district next to Busch Stadium.
DeWitt appeared in a 2006 episode of the
ESPN Classic
ESPN Classic was an American multinational pay television network owned by ESPN Inc., a joint venture between The Walt Disney Company (which owns a controlling 80% stake) and Hearst Communications (which owns 20%).
The channel was originally la ...
series ''
Cheap Seats'', filmed on location in St. Louis. Hosts
Randy Sklar and
Jason Sklar are natives of St. Louis.
Personal life
DeWitt is married to Ira Aldanmaz DeWitt; the couple have two children, daughter Natalie and son William Orville IV. In his spare time, DeWitt plays
golf
Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible.
Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping ...
and
ice hockey
Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice h ...
.
Mrs. DeWitt is from
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
and is of
Armenian
Armenian may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia
* Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent
** Armenian Diaspora, Armenian communities across the ...
descent. Also a
businesswoman
A businessperson, businessman, or businesswoman is an individual who has founded, owns, or holds shares in (including as an angel investor) a private-sector company. A businessperson undertakes activities (commercial or industrial) for the ...
, she is the owner of St. Louis-based
Notifi Records, an
urban contemporary
Urban contemporary music, also known as urban music, hip hop, urban pop, or just simply urban, is a music radio format. The term was coined by New York radio DJ Frankie Crocker in the early to mid-1970s as a synonym for Black music. Urban conte ...
record label
A record label, or record company, is a brand or trademark of music recordings and music videos, or the company that owns it. Sometimes, a record label is also a publishing company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the produ ...
whose artist roster has included
Ginuwine
Elgin Baylor Lumpkin (born October 15, 1970), better known by his stage name Ginuwine, is an American R&B singer, songwriter, dancer, and actor. He began his career as a member of Swing Mob in the early 1990s. Signing to Epic Records as a solo ...
,
Johnny Gill
Johnny Gill Jr. (born May 22, 1966) is an American singer and actor. He is the sixth and final member of the R&B/pop group New Edition and was also a member of the supergroup called LSG, with Gerald Levert and Keith Sweat. Gill has released e ...
, and Bos. She earned a
Ph.D.
A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...
in
psychology
Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries between ...
and
education
Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty ...
from
Saint Louis University in 1998.
See also
*
List of St. Louis Cardinals owners and executives
References
External links
Front Office Directory St. Louis Cardinals:
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dewitt, Bill, Iii
St. Louis Cardinals executives
Major League Baseball team presidents
Living people
Harvard Business School alumni
Yale University alumni
Taft School alumni
1968 births