Palace Entertainment, a leading leisure park operator with more than 20 major entertainment venues across the United States and Australia today announced the appointment of Ricky Spicuzza to General Manager of Kennywood Park and Sandcastle Water Park. As a native of Pittsburgh, he brings more than 20 years of dedicated amusement and water park experience to the role. Ricky’s first order of business has been extending park operating hours, offering 20 days of 10 p.m. closes in July.

Spicuzza began his career at Kennywood in 2002 as a food and beverage team member in the park’s iconic Pagoda. Over the past 22 seasons with Palace Entertainment, he has worked in several leadership positions at each of the company’s Pittsburgh-based parks. In 2010, Spicuzza joined the team at Idlewild & SoakZone where he served as the aquatics manager for three years before being promoted to director of operations in 2013. In 2016, Spicuzza was named assistant general manager of Idlewild and in 2021, he was named the assistant general manager of Sandcastle Water Park. During his time at Sandcastle, he oversaw one of the water park’s largest capital investment projects ever, as it underwent a massive transformation completely redesigning the front gate, several food and beverage locations, retail stores and more.

Most recently, Spicuzza served as the assistant general manager at Kennywood Park. Since 2023, he has been instrumental in overseeing the operations, retail, maintenance, security and food and beverage departments. This season, Spicuzza led several park-wide upgrades as Kennywood continued its multi-year transformation project, including, the opening of the new Potato Smash bumper cars, the all-new Carousel Burger Company, the introduction of the new Jeeter’s Pub and much more.

“After more than 22 seasons with Palace Entertainment, we are thrilled to name Ricky Spicuzza as general manager of Kennywood Park and Sandcastle Water Park,” said Vice President of Operations, Mark Pauls. “I believe Ricky is the perfect person to lead each of these beloved Pittsburgh institutions as we continue to invest in these properties with new capital projects, robust event lineups and more.”

Based in Pittsburgh, Palace Entertainment continues to grow and shape its leadership team with industry veterans joining the Pennsylvania-based organization from across the country. Since 2023, the company has elevated several internal executives while also recruiting top-tier talent from the amusement industry.