Kent Haslam Position: Director of Athletics

Kent Haslam joined The University of Montana in January 2006, serving as Associate Athletic Director for Development before being named Director of Athletics in September 2012. Haslam, who splits duties between UM Athletics and the UM Foundation, spent the previous six years at Northern Arizona University as Associate Athletics Director for External Operations.

At NAU he supervised all the day-to-day operations of the marketing and media relations offices as well as the statewide Lumberjack Radio Network, where he served as executive producer and secured all network affiliates and sponsors. He was the primary liaison for the department's television contracts and oversaw corporate sponsorship sales. Haslam also directed game management, facility operations and ticketing for the athletic department, while overseeing the operation of the Lumberjack soccer, swimming and diving, tennis and the stunt and dance programs. Haslam worked closely with athletic development in identifying and cultivating donors for the annual scholarship fund and major gifts.

Haslam also assisted with the design and fund-raising for a locker room facility at Lumberjack Stadium and oversaw the installation of a state-of-the-art video and scoreboard center in the Walkup Skydome. He brokered a partnership with Virtu Development Group, based in Scottsdale, that delivered a new 26-foot wide video board along with digital color boards, matrix scoreboard and tri-vision rotating ad panels.

Under his direction, the corporate sales of NAU's athletic department generated record-setting revenue in 2004-05, highlighted by partnerships with Pepsi Bottling Company and the Summit Center, both Flagstaff-based companies and primary sponsors of the new scoreboard system. Overall, Haslam attracted participation from numerous local, state, regional and national corporations. Haslam also secured an affiliate membership for the swimming and diving program into the Western Athletic Conference, an affiliation that produced a fifth-place conference finish and the naming of NAU head coach Andy Johns as the conference's coach of the year in its initial season.

Haslam started at NAU in May 2000 after serving as media and communications manager for the Salt Lake Olympic Organizing Committee since November 1998. During that time he was a key contact for all local, national and international media members for events surrounding the 2002 Olympic Winter Games. He returned to Salt Lake City during the 2002 Olympic Winter Games and spent four weeks serving as a supervisor of the Olympic News Service, based in the Main Media Center. The nearly 100-person in-house agency produced hundreds of daily stories, which were used by more than 9,000 credentialed journalists covering the Games.

Haslam spent the previous five years working in professional baseball. He worked for five seasons as director of communications and corporate development for the Salt Lake Buzz baseball club of the Pacific Coast League, the Triple-A affiliate of the Minnesota Twins. He was the primary contact for the flagship radio and television stations as well as co-host of Buzz Fan Forum, a weekly one-hour radio show. Haslam was the liaison between the Buzz and the parent club Minnesota Twins and solicited and secured corporate partnerships for the team. He spent spring training 1997 working for the Anaheim Angels as team travel coordinator and translator/media contact for Japanese pitcher Shigetoshi Hasegawa.

A 1993 graduate of BYU with a degree in broadcast journalism and Japanese, Haslam received his master's degree in educational leadership from NAU in May 2004. He is married to the former Holly Huber, and the couple has five children: Braxton, Andersen, Avery, Layne, and Kyler.