YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – Richard LaRocca is at the top of the private club industry.
The Youngstown native was elected chairman of the Club Management Association of America in February. The group advances the profession through education, resources and advocacy.
He is also the general manager and COO of the elite St. Clair Country Club in suburban Pittsburgh.
But LaRocca is quick to point out that he had a head start.
He was raised in a home where visitors were treated with joy and generosity. Hospitality was instilled in LaRocca as a youth, and he would go on to a career of making people feel special.
He started at the bottom, working as a caddy at Youngstown Country Club as a teenager, and eventually learned just about every job in the clubhouse.
Career History
It all started in the 1960s, when he was growing up in a “very Italian” house on Youngstown’s east side.
“We lived at the corner of Bennington and Atkinson,” he says. “I’ll never forget it. Anytime somebody came to our home, you were going to eat. My mom was an incredible cook and baker. You would feel warm and welcome.”
His father, who worked at US Steel for 40 years, ran the local bingo night every Friday, and his mother handled the food, be it a bake sale, fish fry or other event.
“Hospitality was part of our DNA,” LaRocca told the CMAA’s publication in an article about his ascent to the organization’s top position.
The youngest of four brothers, he followed in the footsteps of his siblings.
“When my oldest brother, Pat (Pasquale), started caddying at Youngstown Country Club and then got into the culinary end of the business, we all followed him,” LaRocca recalls. “It was just pretty natural to us, this private club business. We got a great reward from it. We had seen how our parents did it and saw others enjoying themselves.”
He and his brothers proved to be naturals at customer service and as staff leaders. The country club setting “became our perfect storm,” he says.
LaRocca graduated from Cardinal Mooney High School in 1980. He started taking classes at Youngstown State University that fall while still caddying at YCC.
His brother Pat was manager at Youngstown Country Club by this time but soon accepted a position at Oakmont Country Club near Pittsburgh.
Shortly after Pat left Youngstown Country Club, LaRocca started working there while still attending YSU.
He was promoted to assistant manager after graduating college in 1984.
“That’s how I got started in the management side of it,” he recalls.
LaRocca’s career would later take him to several clubs.
He was general manager of Allegheny Country Club in Pittsburgh from 1990-2003, and general manager-COO of Kirtland Country Club near Cleveland from 2003-2013.
He held similar positions at the Country Club of Orlando in Florida from 2013-2019, and at Beechmont Country Club in Warrensville Heights from 2019-2023.
LaRocca started at St. Clair Country Club in 2023.
The Club Advantage
He had an opportunity to work in the hotel business some years ago but declined it. Private clubs, he points out, have the benefit of a loyal customer base.
“If I serve [a family] 52 weeks a year, and I have one bad occasion, they will say, ‘You had one hiccup, but it’s great to be with you and we’re coming back,’” he says. “It’s a better opportunity for relationship building.”
Private clubs offer their members a respite from the daily grind, a place to unwind, play golf and enjoy the pool and other amenities in a safe and fun environment, LaRocca says.
“It’s a spot where we can take a weekend vacation … and I think that’s why people gravitate to a private club,” he says. “There’s a sense of community.”
LaRocca, who has been a CMAA board member for eight years, says he was honored to be elected by his peers to the director’s seat. His goal is to leave the organization, and the industry, better off than how he found it.
He credits the grit of Youngstown for propelling his career and he wants to use his position to help others on the same path.
“You just look back and say, ‘I’ve got to make things better for the people who follow me,’” he says. “This industry has been my whole career, and my family’s. How can I make it even better?”
LaRocca and his family have already taken steps toward that end.
“One of our proudest moments was creating the LaRocca Family Executive Scholarship” through The Club Foundation, he says.
“My brothers and I started it in 2010 to help a mentor and a mentee in the [private club] industry, because we felt like for our whole lives we’ve been mentored – all the way back to our parents, aunts and uncles.”
The scholarship helps a mentor and mentee attend business management classes at schools throughout the country.
Family Business
LaRocca and his three brothers started what has become a pipeline of family members in the hospitality field. It’s nothing short of amazing.
Pat, the oldest brother, has retired after a long career in the field.
Joe has had a long career at multiple clubs – too many to mention,” he says. He spent the bulk of his career as the manager of Youngstown Country Club and is currently its membership director.
While reflecting on his own career in the comfortable surroundings of the clubhouse in Liberty Township, Joe concurred with Richard.
“This industry has been very good to our family,” he says. “We just like people. It’s nice doing stuff for others and our whole family was brought up that way.
“My mother did hospitality from the word go. We never knew back then what she was doing. But we learned it… I’ve said before, we got our basic training from mom and dad.”
The second-oldest LaRocca brother, Henry, was in the private club industry in his early days – including a stint as a caddy at Youngstown Country Club – but moved into a different career.
LaRocca’s wife, Christine, is developer and coordinator of culinary logistics at St. Clair Country Club. Their daughter, Alexandria LaRocca-Assumma, is director of member engagement at Beach Point Club in Mamaroneck, N.Y.
Nicholas J. LaRocca, his nephew and Pat’s son, is general manager-COO of Muirfield Golf Club in Dublin, Ohio.
Jon Anthony LaRocca, also Pat’s son, is general manager-COO of The Bears Club in Jupiter, Fla.
Jacqueline LaRocca, Pat’s daughter, is food and beverage director of Scioto Country Club in Columbus.
Pictured at top: Richard LaRocca was elected to a one-year term as chairman of the board of the Club Management Association of America earlier this year. He is shown at St. Clair Country Club near Pittsburgh, where he is general manager and COO.