NEW YORK
Rocco Lacertosa Steps into
Leadership Role at NYOHA
There is a new executive in charge at the
New York Oil Heating Association. On
August 28, Rocco J. Lacertosa Sr. stepped
into the chief executive role at one of the
heating oil industry's most influential asso-
ciations. He succeeds John Maniscalco,
who led NYOHA for 24 years and earned
widespread praise as one of the industry's
great leaders.
"I definitely have a big pair of shoes to
fill," said Lacertosa.
Lacertosa joined the industry in 1966 as
a technician and delivery driver in a fam-
ily-owned business and in the intervening
decades has held numerous leadership roles.
In 22 years with his first company, Lacertosa
worked in every area of the business, includ-
ing dispatch and credit, and eventually
oversaw all the day-to-day operations.
He then founded his own company in
1990 (Alpha Fuel Oil) and ran it until sell-
ing to Hart Petroleum four years later and
becoming Hart's general manager. In 1999,
he was recruited to run a $25 million division
of a Reading, Pa., company. Then, in 2011,
he joined New York-based Blue Diamond
Fuel. During that same year, Approved
Oil purchased Blue Diamond and made
Lacertosa vice president of operations. Along
the way, he also held senior level positions
with Kaufman Fuel and Paraco Gas.
This spring and summer, Lacertosa
topped off his experience with a 17-week
stint working alongside Maniscalco at
NYOHA. "John was very gracious,"
Lacertosa said. "He made sure to intro-
duce me to all the right people: the people
in politics, the industry executives—all the
people we work with here. It was a really
smooth transition."
On the other hand, the switch from
company executive to industry executive is a
sizable leap, he noted. "It's completely differ-
ent. I'm no longer worrying about trucks and
drivers and other operational issues. Here,
we are taking care of the dealers' concerns,
and something new is always coming up."
Working side-by-side with Maniscalco
reinforced what Lacertosa had seen for six
years as a NYOHA board member. "He
is a strategic thinker, which is important
in this role, and he has a great intellect,"
Lacertosa said of his predecessor. "He
knows what is going on, and he antici-
pates things. He's also very persistent,
which you could see in the passage of the
B2 bill. He's personable too, and he never
gets rattled." [See the Steve Bennett's arti-
cle on the leadership change on page 34.]
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10 OCTOBER 2015 | FUEL OIL NEWS | www.fueloilnews.com
