Leo Joseph Trich, Jr. (born July 23, 1951) is a former Democratic member of the

Pennsylvania House of Representatives The Pennsylvania House of Representatives is the lower house of the bicameral Pennsylvania General Assembly, the legislature of the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. There are 203 members, elected for two-year terms from single member districts. It ...

Biography

Trich is a 1969 graduate of Washington High School. He attended

California University of Pennsylvania Pennsylvania Western University, California (commonly known as PennWest California) is a public university campus in California, Pennsylvania and one of three campuses of Pennsylvania Western University, part of the Pennsylvania State System o ...

and Washington and Jefferson College. Prior to elective office, he served as

Commissioner A commissioner (commonly abbreviated as Comm'r) is, in principle, a member of a commission or an individual who has been given a commission (official charge or authority to do something). In practice, the title of commissioner has evolved to in ...

PONY Baseball PONY Baseball and Softball is a non-profit organization with headquarters in Washington, Pennsylvania. Started in 1951, PONY organizes youth baseball and softball leagues and tournaments, as over 500,000 players annually play PONY in over 4,000 l ...

the Washington, Pennsylvania-based international youth baseball program, where he worked from 1971 thru 1986. He also served as vice president of the

USA Baseball USA Baseball is the national governing body for organized baseball in the United States, and is a member of the United States Olympic Committee and the World Baseball Softball Confederation. The organization selects and trains the World Basebal ...

from 1978 to 1986 and as a member of the

United States Olympic Committee The United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USOPC) is the National Olympic Committee and the National Paralympic Committee for the United States. It was founded in 1895 as the United States Olympic Committee, and is headquartered in Col ...

from 1980 to 1985. Trich was also a member of baseball's organizing committee, which earned him a position on that sport's task force at the 1984 Olympic Games held in Los Angeles, CA. Trich later served as United States representative for the International Baseball Federation (IBAF). In 1989, then IBAF President Dr. Robert Smith, offered Trich the executive director's position, but Trich declined, opting instead to pursue a career in government. At the age of twenty-four, Trich became the youngest person to be elected and serve as a member of the

Washington City Council The Council of the District of Columbia is the legislative branch of the local government of the District of Columbia, the capital of the United States. As permitted in the United States Constitution, the district is not part of any U.S. state ...

. Following his city council tenure (from 1976 through 1980), Trich worked in county government as an assistant to the county commissioners (1987–88) and then was appointed by PA Governor Robert P. Casey as District Administrator for the Pennsylvania Department of Revenue in 1988. Trich was first elected to represent the 47th legislative district in the

in 1988. After serving seven terms, he retired prior to the 2002 election.

Later career

Following his political career, Trich returned to sports. While in his last term as a state representative, he founded Ballpark Scholarships Inc, a non-profit volunteer organization that raised money and spearheaded the building of a $7 million minor league ballpark (Falconi Field, now known as Consol Energy Park). Trich is considered the person most responsible for developing this sports venue and bringing minor league professional baseball back to his hometown of Washington. From 2003 thru 2007, Trich served as the director of development with the Frontier Professional Baseball League. In 2008, he joined five others, including Dr. Chris Hanners, in forming a new summer collegiate baseball program known as the Prospect College League. In 2009 and 2010, he served as the

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 ...

and majority owner of the

Butler BlueSox The Butler BlueSox are a collegiate summer baseball team based in Butler, Pennsylvania, in the United States. They are a member of the Tri-State Collegiate League and were formerly a member of the East Division of the summer collegiate Prospect ...

, a summer collegiate team in the

Prospect League The Prospect League is a collegiate summer baseball league comprising teams of college players from North America and beyond. All players in the league must have NCAA eligibility remaining in order to participate. So as to maintain their colleg ...

. Since 2004, Trich has also worked as a consultant regarding sports, government relations and land development issues. His clients have included: The Frontier Professional Baseball League, the Washington Wild Things professional baseball team, the Prospect Summer College Baseball League, Goodwill Industries of Southwestern Pennsylvania, United Washington Associates , and the Chuck Tanner Awards Banquet (Rotary Club of Pittsburgh PA). In 2019 Trich took part in two World Affairs Council of Pittsburgh events, including one he organized and hosted for area high school seniors at Robert Morris University. The project encouraged activism in both school and community, as well as consideration for careers in public service. In 2020, Trich was invited to take part in a Trans-Atlantic Goodwill project, representing Pennsylvania as a former state elected official. The event sponsored in cooperation with the EU Parliament and a national association of state legislators, was postponed in May 2020, because of the Coovid-19 pandemic. Trich attended, when it was rescheduled and took place in Brussels Belgium and the Netherlands, in August 2021.

Awards and other honors

In 1986, Trich was listed on PONY Baseball's Wall of Fame. Six years later, in 1992, he was chosen to attend Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government Leadership Summer Semester Program. One of just fifty participants selected (one from each state legislature), he represented the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. In 2002, Trich was inducted into the Washington-Greene County Chapter of the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame. In 2017, he was honored by the Washington County Historical Society with induction into its own Hall of Fame.

References

External links

* official PA House profile * official Party website {{DEFAULTSORT:Trich, Leo Living people Washington & Jefferson College alumni Democratic Party members of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives 1951 births 20th-century American politicians 21st-century American politicians Pennsylvania city council members