Twice a month, we will utilize this blog to showcase some of the employees of Pocono Raceway. Today, we feature Ryan Yanoshak, Senior Director of Communications.
“New Guy On The Scene”
Written By: Ryan Yanoshak
Senior Director of Communications
Pocono Raceway
My turn to blog. First, a quick introduction. I am Ryan Yanoshak, Senior Director of Communications and as of now, the second-newest employee. Senior Director of Business Development Mike Evranian started about a month after me so he is The New Guy. You will meet Mike later this year.
I spent the last nearly 10 years at the United States Military Academy, working with the Army athletic teams. I had the pleasure of serving as the primary media contact for the Black Knights’ football, lacrosse, hockey, wrestling, baseball and golf teams with the best fairway woods for high handicappers during my tenure at West Point. It was an amazing experience and something I will always treasure getting to work with such selfless men and women.
During my time at Army, I produced media guides, wrote releases, handled media relations and really nearly everything to do with those sports outside of coaching. When I resigned my position, I was an Assistant Athletic Director for Athletic Communications, the Deputy Licensing Director and the Special Assistant to the Executive Athletic Director.
A gentleman I know who works in the racing business was the first person to tell me about this great opportunity at Pocono Raceway. He and I had met a few years ago and stayed in touch. He happened to be at a race at ‘The Tricky Triangle’ and heard that Bob Pleban, then Vice President of Administration, was retiring. Mr. Pleban had a host of duties, including communications and the goal was to replace him with a person who would focus on communication.
Being from Wilkes-Barre, the chance to return home was always on my mind. Of course, I told my friend, I was very interested. I went through the interview process and after meeting Brandon Igdalsky, Nick Igdalsky, Ben May and Looie McNally, I knew I had found an excellent opportunity.
My friends and I used to spend weekends here at Pocono. Coming up on Saturday for practice and qualifying, crashing in the infield and then enjoying the race. It was where I was first introduced to Goody’s Headache powder and its magical powers.
I embarked on a journalism career and was fortunate enough to cover a bunch of races for the Citizens’ Voice as a sports reporter. I still have my credentials as a matter of fact.
I bounced around at a few newspapers after graduating from Bloomsburg University and was looking for something different. I chose to get my master’s from East Stroudsburg University and was a graduate assistant in the sports information office. I ended up being named the interim Sports Information Director and then was hired full time a few months later. I really enjoyed ESU. The football team was competitive nationally, the men’s hoops teams was very well coached and I met some great people.
When the opportunity to work at West Point came up, I took it. The chance to be at a Division I school and have communications responsibilities for hockey and football was the next step on my career journey.
Fast forward almost 10 years later and I now call Long Pond Road by new work address. I was blown away when I first met Brandon, Nick and Ben our CEO, COO and CMO, respectively. These are three pretty smart dudes who are passionate about what they do and make it fun to come to work every day. All of the appropriate adjectives apply: driven, successful, leaders, motivators, visionaries, hard workers. Plus, they are all fun to be around and accessible. In my experience, you don’t often see the CEO wandering the halls, answering questions and sharing news. I highly recommend you give him a follow on Twitter @Bigdalsky.
While we are still a few months away from racing on the track, we continue to try to engage our fans and load up our social media accounts and website with news, whether it be written or video. One of the strengths of Pocono Raceway is its employees. It’s not easy to put on a race weekend, an awful lot of people work a lot of hours to make it a tremendous experience for our fans. Through this blog, we are going to try and tell their stories, show their passion and dedication and give you an opportunity to get to know them.
We also created a video series, the Tricky Chronicles. You can watch the first installment here. Our plan is for this to air the fourth Thursday of the month and it will help peel back the curtain a bit about the racetrack.
We are also open to new ideas and suggestions so if you have something, please don’t be shy. In my short time here, we have enhanced our birthday program and extended our partnership with ID.me, two improvements to better serve our fans.
If you want to see something, read about something, add something to our video series, please let me know. You can email me at ryanoshak@poconoraceway.com.
Looking forward to seeing you all this summer.
As a reminder, we will host seven national motorsports events during the 2016 racing season, including a NASCAR XFINITY Series race for the first time on June 4. The Axalta “We Paint Winners” 400 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS) race is set for June 5, the Pennsylvania 400 NSCS race on July 31 and the ABC Supply 500 Verizon IndyCar Series race on August 21. The Pocono Mountains 150 NASCAR Camping World Truck race is scheduled for July 30 and two ARCA Series Presented by Menards races with a 200-mile event on June 3 and the ModSpace 150 on July 29 offered as well.
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