William Waldo Cameron Forum on Public Affairs - 11/5/2004
Dale A. Petroskey
Dale A. Petroskey became the fifth president of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in July 1999. He oversees the 65-year-old national shrine dedicated to preserving Baseball history and telling the story of its role in American culture.
The museum's mission is to preserve history, honor excellence, and connect generations. Only one percent of those privileged to play Major League Baseball are immortalized with a plaque in the Hall of Fame.
The non-profit educational membership organization opened its doors in 1939, and today occupies 60,000 square feet, employs 90 full-time staff members and attracts about 350,000 visitors a year to Cooperstown, New York. The museum's collections contain more than 165,000 items, and its library catalogs and preserves more than 2 million documents, 500,000 historic photographs, and 12,000 hours of original TV and radio recordings.
Prior to joining the Hall of Fame, Petroskey served at the National Geographic Society for 11 years, the last three as Senior Vice President for Mission Programs.
After both graduated from Michigan State University in 1978, Petroskey married the former Ann Holiday Grover. They have three children - Kathleen, 17, Frank, 15, and Claire, 13 - and live in Cooperstown.