The Quad Cities River Bandits, High-A affiliate of the Kansas City Royals, announced a change up in its leadership team this week with the promotion of Assistant General Manager Julia McNeil to general manager.
Ms. McNeil, who joined the Davenport baseball organization after the 2018 season, succeeds Paul Kleinhans-Schulz, who is leaving the team to pursue new opportunities outside of baseball, the Bandits announced at a news conference Tuesday, Feb. 11.
“Paul Kleinhans-Schulz is a first-rate talent and a great person who did an outstanding job as general manager of the River Bandits,” Dave Heller, the team’s owner, said in a news release announcing the personnel changes Tuesday. “He’s thoughtful, dedicated, and committed to excellence, and he will be missed. Fortunately, we have Julia McNeil ready to step into the general manager’s role without missing a beat.”
“Julia is hard-working, smart, and incredibly talented; she’s earned this promotion and all of us in the Quad Cities are lucky to have her,” Mr. Heller said.
According to the Bandits, Ms. McNeil has worked her way up the baseball ladder over the past decade.
She began her career in 2014 as an intern for the Nashua Silver Knights of the Futures Collegiate Baseball League. The following season, she moved up to the Lowell Spinners of the New York-Penn League. When she completed her internship, she was hired to work in the ticketing department, where she rose to become group sales manager.
Her new post with the River Bandits makes her only the third female general manager in the team’s history and one of only 13 throughout Minor League Baseball.
Her predecessor Mr. Kleinhans-Schulz, who first served as the club’s assistant general manager and then general manager, helped navigate the Bandits through an affiliation change, three floods, and the Covid-19 pandemic.
With both Mr. Kleinhans-Schulz and Ms. McNeil as critical parts of the River Bandits’ senior leadership team, the club earned a myriad of honors, including Ballpark Digest’s Minor League Baseball Team of the Year award (2021) and its Charitable Award (2019 and 2023). In 2024, the team’s ballpark, Modern Woodmen Park, won its second-straight USA TODAY/10Best.com’s Readers’ Choice Award as America’s Best Minor League Ballpark.
After leaving her native Lowell to join the River Bandits, Ms. McNeil served one season as the team’s box office manager before being promoted to director of ticketing and sales/fulfillment, then assistant general manager of ballpark operations and then assistant general manager.
A 2015 graduate of Vermont State University-Lyndon, she is a leading advocate for women in sports. In addition to earning a Women in Baseball Leadership Scholarship in 2019, she was an inaugural member of the MiLB Leaders Inspiring Future Talent Mentorship Program, which promotes the growth of women in baseball through meaningful relationships.
Ms. McNeil is also heavily active within the local community, where she serves as chairwoman of the Jaycees of the Quad Cities and has been elected to numerous leadership roles within the organization.
Ms. McNeil takes the helm as the River Bandits enters its 2025 season marking its fifth season as the High-A affiliate of the Kansas City Royals and its 65th as members of the Midwest League.
In 2021, the River Bandits became the first team in Midwest League history to win four championships in ten seasons (2011, 2013, 2015 and 2021) and were named Ballpark Digest’s Minor League Baseball Team of the Year.
The Bandits anchor the Quad Cities sports market, which The Sports Business Journal named the top minor league sports market in the country in 2015 and second-best minor league market in its 2017 follow-up ranking. In 2015, 2017, 2019, and again in 2023, the River Bandits earned Ballpark Digest’s award for “Best Charitable Works” in Minor League Baseball, the only club to win that coveted award three times.
For more information, visit www.riverbandits.com or contact the River Bandits media relations department at (563) 333-2732.
