Tanner Stines was recently appointed as McNeese State’s Assistant Athletic Director for Internal Operations. Stines came to McNeese after serving as part of Georgia’s Facilities and Event operations team, in what they called Internal Operations. Prior to beginning his new role with the Cowboy’s, Stines gave College AD an inside look at the world of internal operations and how he got his start in the often never seen, but vital role inside of the athletic department. Stines also shared what his new role at McNeese will entail.
College AD: How did you get your start in internal operations?
Tanner Stines: I started out at the University of Georgia as a student equipment manager. When I graduated I was given the opportunity to join the football operations team UGA, I did that pretty much unpaid for about six months. And then, an opportunity opened up in the Athletic Department Administration. They were looking for someone to go in and basically overhaul all the facility graphics, branding, everything in all of the venues, and try and just get everything looking what they wanted to call it, “The Georgia brand” in every building instead of every sport doing their own thing. Josh Brooks who’s now the Athletic Director at Milsaps College, was my boss at that point. He started giving me random tasks, such as managing the air conditioning company contract, and then taking over all of the locks and keys for all the office doors. The list just kept growing of these odds and ends jobs that weren’t really falling under one specific department or one specific other person. And so after about a course of about three years, it then evolved to what they deemed as “Internal Operations.”
CAD: So your job is to keep the internal athletic department working?
TS: Correct. But it’s also much more than that. At Georgia we were also tasked with other things such as forming a football bowl travel committee. When you get to the end of the season, obviously, you’ve had all spring to plan for normal road games, but you’ve about three weeks to plan and prepare for not just a football team, but all their families, administrative staff, president staff, that go on a trip. It’s not just getting them there but, getting them hotel’s or getting them practice. But if you’re going to Orlando for example, it’s planning Disney World, and planning Seaworld, and planning all of the other events and everything that go along with a bowl game. So we got really heavily involved in that, and that is another one of those tasks that just like said, it didn’t really fall on anyone, it was great, it seemed to keep falling in this job role.
And then from there, we also started doing capital projects. We finished up the renovation on our football offices and training facility. We’ve done renovations to our swim/dive program who was at that time back-to-back national champions. We then went in and were doing office renovations, revamping of student athlete areas, locker room renovations. We did a $12 million baseball stadium renovation, just last year. I got really heavily involved in these capital projects just because at that point in time, our normal maintenance workers, our Head of Grounds, Head of Building Services, Head of Facilities Support, they’re keeping the process going, running events day-to-day and making sure all of that happens. Someone else had to go with whichever athletic director was deemed in charge of that project, go with them and help make sure all the nitty gritty involved with those projects was going as well.
Internal Ops, it’s the hodge podge, it’s the catch-all position of all the things that didn’t really fall underneath someone else. We hosted the first-ever concert in Sanford Stadium. That was two weeks of literally living in the stadium to put on a show because this is not something that falls under normal sport activities or anything like that. Those are the type tasks that really make up what internal operations are.
CAD: You weren’t doing any actual fundraising for the capital projects, you were just making sure that things were on time, contractors were doing what they were supposed to do?
TS: Correct, the fundraising would all go through our development office. We were tasked with the actual construction itself. All of the building projects at UGA go through the Office of University Architects. They’re great liaisons from athletics to campus and from athletics to the contractors and whatnot, but every week you probably have about 15 to 20 decisions that need to be made from things as simple as, “All right, we’ve hit bedrock and we’re going to have to cut some things because it’s going to cost us more to dynamite the rock out,” to all the way down to, as small as, “When we build this specific thing, would you rather have Phillips head or flat head screws put into it?” Those types of decisions would fall to our internal operations team.
CAD: So now after six years at Georgia, you are heading to McNeese State. Is this a new position at McNeese?
TS: Yes, it is. Bruce Hemphill, our athletic director, was looking for someone who could help increase the efficiency between campus personnel and athletics. He needed someone who could take over the athletic’s side of business affairs, human resources, facilities management, assisting with game operations, and it just is a bonus that I have project experience as well. They really were in the need for the same thing as many other institutions, A person who can wear a ton of hats, and do a lot of different things.
CAD: Are there any big upcoming projects at McNeese, projects that the administration realized they may need someone to help make construction run smoother?
TS: We’re about to build a new basketball arena with men’s basketball, women’s basketball, and volleyball training facility all in conjunction with the Health and Human Performance Department on campus. We also just received a $700,000 donation to renovate our baseball stadium, so I don’t know that they initially thought about needing someone who could help with these projects as a reason for creating this job, but it worked out well that I have experience working on construction projects like the one’s McNeese is about to undertake.
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