Milwaukee Kickers Soccer Club named Alvaro Garcia-Velez executive director, the club announced today.
Garcia-Velez, a Marquette University graduate, most recently served as president of Notre Dame Middle School in Milwaukee.
"Alvaro brings a wealth of non-profit management experience as well as a love of soccer to the Kickers," said Drew Dion, president of the board of the Kickers, which celebrates its 40th anniversary this year.
"I am looking forward to expanding the club's profile in the community and hope to continue to build partnerships with local businesses," said Garcia-Velez.
The non-profit Milwaukee Kickers Soccer Club has almost 7,000 youth members between the ages of 6 and 19 on 600 teams, making it one of the Midwest's largest soccer clubs. The Kickers also field two adult amateur teams.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
