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| Joe Kuykendall |
What do you do as Assistant Athletics Director for Business Operations?
The biggest thing we try to focus on is being a customer service epicenter for all 27 sports and the numerous other units we have in Athletics. Having been at UVA for five years now, and through a lot of changes, I do a little bit of everything from a “business office” standpoint including processing payments, reviewing expense reports, etc. But the areas I am mainly focused on in our office include leading our procurement and risk management efforts – two areas that are a major part of UVA Finance. One area unrelated to UVA Finance that I do in my role is representing UVA as our ACC ADID (Athletics Diversity and Inclusion Designee). This Athletics Director appointed position is someone who “serves as the conduit for information related to national-, local- and campus-level issues of diversity and inclusion and supports diverse and inclusive practices related to athletics.” We, as an ACC ADID group meet monthly, and then within the Athletics Department, we have our own Inclusive Excellence Committee that I lead. I like this role as it allows me to explore and involve myself in some non-finance areas and it also provides interaction with student-athletes – something we don’t always get in a business office setting.
Who do you work most with in Central Finance?
Honestly, I feel like I work with everyone in Central Finance at some point (many of them are probably sick of hearing from me by now!). But I am communicating weekly (and sometimes daily) with the Services and Athletics team within Procurement and Supplier Diversity Services (shoutout to Kevin, Devon, Patrick, Sara, Garrett, and Krista!) as well as the Risk Management team – on things like insurance requirements in contracts and filing claims. We also have a lot of interaction with the Travel & Expense team because of the amount of travel we do in Athletics, of course. Because of my work on the Athletics purchasing side, the Fixed Asset Accounting Group is one I seem to work with at least once a week as well – especially with all the construction we have going on currently, with our two new operations center and the new football scoreboard, we have been purchasing a lot of capital equipment! I communicate a lot with Andrew Clark on supplier management items because in addition to traditional suppliers, almost all our athletes must get registered for reimbursements/payments of some kind, so we have a high volume because of the number of registrations we have to process for that. There are many many more (great) folks and groups that I didn’t list by name or unit but know I acknowledge and appreciate your work and our interactions!
What rhythms exist in your work? Is there a busy season?
June is easily our busiest month because of fiscal year-end. We try to be the best stewards of our dollars that we can in Athletics and a major part of that involves waiting to spend on major projects until the end of the year when we have a better idea of our financial position. This means lots of late June purchases. We keep the PSDS team busy up until the PO Invoice Cutoff deadline. July is then our slowest month because there are no major fiscal deadlines and none of our teams are in season. Outside of those two months, things stay relatively steady but there are busier times when crossover season happens (when the end of one season overlaps with the beginning of the next – e.g. Fall/Winter Sports, Winter/Spring Sports).
What do you like most about what you do?
It’s definitely getting to work with an interact with all the sports and units within the Athletics Department. Our office gets to work with all the aforementioned 27 sports and units which isn’t the case for all employees in an Athletics Department (e.g. Employees in marketing work with a handful of assigned sports and not all 27). It makes attending events more fun when there is that personal connection to them. From a work standpoint, my favorite thing is getting asked to help with something that is a new issue or a problem to solve. I love all puzzle-type things and new problems that I have to find a solution to are like a puzzle to me!
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| Joe's work space |
Admittedly, sometimes Athletics can seem like it doesn’t belong in the higher education landscape, especially at an ACC school where many of our teams operate and compete at a professional level. That said, I genuinely think and feel UVA tries to use Athletics as just one of the many components of a holistic education experience for its athletes. And we have coaches who believe in and support this mindset, too! With that in mind, the more I can do to help alleviate the coaches of some of the finance and administrative burdens, the more they can focus on winning and educating which is ultimately helping to further UVA’s mission. Part of UVA’s actual mission statement is “development of the full potential of talented students from all walks of life.” For some of our athletes, their full potential is a professional sports career, and no time is a better example of this than all the UVA Athletes (and coaches) competing in the Olympics right now. If not for UVA, those athletes wouldn’t be competing at that level. Again, by helping their coaches in the administrative areas, they get more attention and focus from their coaches which leads to national championships and gold medals!
What's something interesting or funny about your team?
We have a mini-basketball hoop in our office which creates some fun/friendly competitions and distractions! Come check it out – we are always open to visitors and showing folks around our office space and other athletics facilities. Just reach out! But be ready to be required to make a trick shot on the mini-basketball hoop.
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