Penguins chief operating officer Travis Williams is leaving the organization to accept a larger role with the New York Islanders, multiple sources told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Friday afternoon.
Williams, who oversees day-to-day business and arena operations, has been with the Penguins for the past decade-plus.
He’s been Penguins’ point man on the development of the former Civic Arena site, and Williams previously had a key role in the construction of PPG Paints Arena and the UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex.
Prior to joining the Penguins in 2008, Williams was a partner at Reed Smith LLP, spending a dozen years there doing various things such as mergers and acquisitions, investment management and commercial lending.
The Islanders job offers Williams a promotion.
He’ll basically run the business side of things, with Lou Lamoniello serving as president of hockey operations. The Islanders will play games at both Barclays Center and Nassau Coliseum in 2018-19, with plans to move into $1 billion Belmont Park Arena by 2021.
Williams was promoted into his current role in 2011. He reports directly to president/CEO David Morehouse, who’s from Beechview and has no current plans of leaving.
Behind Morehouse, Williams and others, the Penguins have built themselves into one of the NHL’s most successful brands and business-oriented teams.
They regularly finish at or near the top of every NHL metric involving merchandise, U.S. television ratings and social media penetration.
Jason Mackey: jmackey@post-gazette.com and Twitter @JMackeyPG.
First Published: October 5, 2018, 8:30 p.m.
