Welcome to new director of athletics Rob Mullens
July 15th, 2010This has been a day of celebration and congratulations. We have brought Rob Mullens to the University of Oregon as our new director of intercollegiate athletics, and he is exactly the person we wanted.
Rob has been deputy director of athletics at the University of Kentucky for the past four years, and has been at Kentucky since 2002. Before that, he spent six years at the University of Maryland – ultimately serving as executive senior associate director of athletics and chief of staff. He began his career as an accountant and auditor for Ernst & Young in Raleigh, N.C.
His deep experience in key management roles has helped the athletics departments at Kentucky and Maryland to flourish. The annual operating budget for the University of Kentucky’s 22-sport athletics department has increased by nearly 70 percent, to $79 million, during Rob’s eight years on the job. Fund-raising for the department reached record levels in each of the past seven years.
Rob has managed day-to-day departmental operations at Kentucky. But it is his management and financial expertise that will be invaluable to the UO as our athletics department continues to secure its place as one of the preeminent programs in the nation. He promoted sound fiscal management and self-sufficiency at the University of Kentucky, and will do the same at the UO.
Video of Rob Mullens talking with faculty and staff:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkBf85_YRxg&feature=player_embedded
Watch the press conference:
http://www.goducks.com/mediaPortal/player.dbml?id=717188
As happy as I am that our excellent search team found Rob Mullens and we were able to hire him as athletics director, I don’t want to overlook the outstanding job that has been done by the person serving in that role on an interim basis since March. We felt no pressure whatsoever to make a permanent hire at this time because of the steadying influence Lorraine Davis has had on that department.
But we could not have found a person more uniquely suited to the athletics director position at our university than Rob Mullens. Please help me in making Rob, his wife Jane and their two young sons feel welcome.
