GB Baseball has announced changes to its structure ahead of the team’s European Championship and World Baseball Classic Qualifier appearances in September, including a new General Manager.
The Great Britain Baseball staff has announced changes to its structure ahead of the team’s European Championship and World Baseball Classic Qualifier appearances in September. New volunteer roles have been added to the GB Operations team while other jobs are being reshaped to better cope with the 2012 workload and make best use of staff skills.
New General Manager
The biggest change will see the current GB Cadet Coach, Brendan Cunliffe, also assume the responsibilities of Senior Team General Manager, replacing Jason Greenberg.
Greenberg served as Senior GM for the past two years as well as Great Britain Baseball’s Director of Operations. Going forward, Cunliffe will assume charge of the programme’s top team and Greenberg will focus more broadly on the operational structure and logistical processes of all four GB squads.
“This is the most challenging summer of Great Britain Baseball to date,” said Greenberg. “We have four teams heading in separate directions around the globe, more rostered players than ever before in the history of our national teams, and of course, with our appearance in the World Baseball Classic qualifier, the eyes of the world will be upon us. We felt it was imperative to get more volunteers involved and shake up our management system from the top down to ensure we’re fully equipped for the work ahead.”
Brendan Cunliffe, who comes from Ontario, Canada and is currently living and working in London as a Senior Development Manager at BaseballSoftballUK, will take over as Senior General Manager with immediate effect. Brendan was part of the Team GB pitching staff the last two seasons for European tournaments in Stuttgart, Germany and Tel Aviv, Israel. He played baseball for four years at Montreat College in North Carolina and won national championships in Britain with the Bracknell Blazers (2009) and Southern Nationals (2011). He is the current Head Coach of the GB Cadet National Team and will continue to fulfil that role this July when he leads the Cadets to a challenging series of games across eastern Canada.
“Brendan [Cunliffe] will be a terrific General Manager,” Jason Greenberg said. “He is stepping up in a big way, giving even more time and energy to the programme and assuming a critical role in a relentless summer of GB competition.”
Additional changes
Supporting Brendan Cunliffe as Assistant General Manager and new Media Director for the GB Senior Team will be Trevor Clissold.
Clissold was born and raised in London and studied in Edinburgh and Nottingham before attending the University of Exeter, where he focused on Politics and International Relations. He began his career working at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office before moving into the area of Human Resources, specialising in Employee Relations, and he now works full time for BaseballSoftballUK.
Clissold was a part of the youth programme for the world’s oldest rugby club, Blackheath RFC, and from 2008-2010 was the club secretary for one of the South East’s longest-running Sunday football clubs. He is now a member of the Kent Mariners Baseball Club.
BBF National Teams Programme Director Marty Cullen said: “It is high time we carved up our growing responsibilities as a national teams programme and got more hands on deck. As with any volunteer organisation, we need a lot of good people working hard to get the job done and I believe all of these revised roles and new faces will help us move forward in 2012 and beyond.”
The GB programme is still looking for additional volunteers, including a Treasurer and Finance Director, an Equipment and Merchandising Coordinator, individual facilitators for GB Baseball fundraisers, and further Assistant General Managers to oversee finite areas of operational work. Some staff will have the opportunity to join the national teams on trips abroad, including at the European Championships and at the World Baseball Classic qualifier.