Professional Development Chair

Department of Sport Management

Professional Development Chairperson

As the professional development chairperson for the Slippery Rock University Department of Sport Management I have the privilege to aid students in expanding their professional networking, providing them with unique opportunites in the sport industry, and knowledge from proven industry professionals. My responsibility is to ensure we have a diverse schedule of speakers to present at the Department's monthly Speaker Series meetings.

For the September speaker series event we hosted Nick McNeill, the Director of New Business Development and Tom Peluso, the Manager of Inside Sales for the Pittsburgh Pirates. The professionals provided students with a background on the sales process, how businesses utilize sport to expand their client base, and the essential characteristics of a succesful salesperson

For the October speaker series event we hosted Ryan Robbins, the Director of Premium Seating and Services for the Cleveland Indians. Ryan brought a presentation that included information he and his staff used to present a sales pitch to a prospective client. Ryan also discussed with our department the importance of follow up and service for continued business.

For the November speaker series event we hosted Donna Sanft, the Executive Associate Athletic Director at the University of Pittsburgh. Donna was able to provide us with new knowledge on the ACC and it's expansion of college teams. She was also able to discuss the ACC's most recent media rights deal and the future of the ACC and whether it will create it's own network similar to the SEC and the Big Ten. Donna closed her presentation with uplifting motivation and career advice for students to pursue their aspirations in the industry.

In November I was also able to organize a one of its kind SRU Sport Management networking event at Quicken Loans Arena with 56 students from Slippery Rock University. The event gave our students the opportuntity to have lunch with various executies within the Cleveland Cavaliers organization, engage with executives during pannel sessions, and attend a Cleveland Cavaliers game. This was an invaluable experience for our students and I have aspirations for developing a similar event in the spring with the Pittsburgh Pirates.

When I came back from Atlanta after completing my sales internship with the Atlanta Hawks this summer I came to school with a new sense of creativity. I had an idea to develop a partnership with a local pizza company to help our department cut expenses for our speaker series events. Every speaker series we used to spend about $150 for pizza. I came up with a sponsorship proposal and it took only one meeting to close the deal with the local pizza company owner of Fox's Pizza. Fox's is now the official naming rights partner of the Sport Management Speaker Series delivered to you by Fox's Pizza which includes several assets including social media, event day signage, and brochure representation. The sponsorship saves the department over $1,000 in pizza expenses and this is what I believe gave me the opportuntiy to organize the Cleveland Cavaliers event since we were able to use the additional funding on the coach bus to Cleveland.

For the spring semester I have already confirmed all of our speakers. In January we will host SRU Alumn, Chase McClain, Chase is the Tournament Director for the Mylan Classic. In March we will host a stadium and event operations pannel which will include Chris Hunter - Director of Ballpark Operations at PNC Park, Rob Thompson - Director of Event Services for the Pittsburgh Steelers and potentially Beth Brand- Director of Cleveland Clinic event services. The final two speakers for the spring semester will be Lauren Ashman, an Alumn who is currently an Associate Athletic Director for Compliance at the University of Ohio and to close the spring semester speaker series John Simpson from the PIttsburgh Steelers Marketing Department will join us.