Baseball New Zealand has recently made the first of many planned moves, to bring a higher level of baseball to the nation’s players by hiring the former architect of an Olympic-level baseball program in the Western Pacific.

Ryan Flynn, a former collegiate and semi-professional baseball player as well as World Cup and Olympic qualifier coach, was hired by Baseball New Zealand as the program’s new Development Officer to build an organization that will be competitive internationally at all age levels while generally overseeing all aspects of the improvement of the game on and off the field.

“I’m incredibly pleased to have been chosen by Baseball New Zealand’s Board of Directors,” said Flynn from his current home in Edmonds, Washington. “I believe the game in New Zealand has all the makings for a high calibre, world class program. There’s tremendous backing from the Board, great Coaches, Umpires, and hundreds of young men and women playing the game. The nation has already produced talented professional players who have succeeded at the highest levels in America.”

Flynn, who originally hails from Albany, New York, where he played his collegiate ball, worked for Major League Baseball International in the early ‘90s where he promoted baseball games between the Boston Red Sox and New York Mets at the Oval Cricket grounds and served as a sports writer for Time Out London.

The next stop on his baseball journey was the United States territory of Guam, where he served as speechwriter for a governor, ran the marketing department for Anheuser-Busch Inc., and took over the island’s national baseball program, leading them to within three wins of the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games. As both a coach and an administrator, he has led a half dozen more national teams from the Republic of Palau and Guam to various regional and international tournaments as well, including Guam’s junior national ballclub to the 1999 World Championship in Taiwan.

Said, Baseball New Zealand President David Ballinger of the hiring: ‘Ryan has been successful in his life, both off the field and on, and his passion for the game and his many successes in fundraising, marketing and organization development is what Baseball New Zealand needs right now. He has the leadership and vision, and he wants big things, as do we,” Flynn would be utilized primarily in an off-the-field role while working out of Auckland.

“I see great things on the near horizon for Baseball New Zealand,” said Flynn, who is expected to arrive in Auckland on September 19. “We want to work together to put into place an organization that stands the test of time, a program that is respected domestically and internationally, and build teams, fields and a style of game that attracts New Zealand’s young people to have fun and become healthy and quality individuals through the great game of baseball.”

Flynn, who has a wife, Jenny Fair, and a young daughter and son, currently runs his own marketing company and coaches youth baseball in western Washington State.