Shelbie Harris
News Editor
Rather than selecting a candidate from out-of-state, ISU announced Idaho Falls native, Stuart Summers, as the associate vice president of the Office of Marketing and Communications on Nov. 17.
Hired after conducting a national search lasting several months, Summers replaces interim director Andrew Taylor, who temporarily stood in after former director, Adrienne King, left for a position at Murray State University on Aug. 30.
“When you see people come in who are not familiar with ISU, it’s not to say they don’t do great things, but maybe they don’t have the same passion or drive,” Summers said. “This isn’t their home, they didn’t grow up here, and they may not bleed orange like the rest of us.”
ISU is no stranger to Summers’ skills and expertise. For the last four years he was the Director of Marketing and Recruitment at the College of Technology. His new role with the university begins the spring 2016 semester on Jan. 4.
According to Brian Sagendorf, ISU director of human resources, the title change from director to vice president better suits the duties and responsibilities associated with the position. He also said Summers had local experience, both with ISU and the community, which officials found to be relevant to the position.
“It happened to be someone here local who really has a nice mix of ISU experience,” Sagendorf said. “Obviously he’s been here, he knows the organizational structure, he knows many of the challenges and opportunities the university has, but at the same time he has that external experience too, as he knows the local media outlets.”
Before coming to work for the ISU college of Technology, Summers worked as a morning show anchor and producer for KPVI-TV that included breaking news, weather alerts, live reports and sit down interviews.
Early on, Summers knew he wanted to be involved with media in some way or another and began pursuing his career as soon as his freshman year at ISU.
“I’ve always had a passion for talking to people and meeting as many new people as possible,” Summers said. “I love figuring out their story, what drives them and what their interests are. Everyone has a story behind them.”
As director of marketing and recruitment at the ISU College of Technology, Summers supervises a staff of seven. He coordinates and plans all marketing efforts, advertising campaigns, recruitment events and communication initiatives for the college. His duties include creating and implementing an annual marketing plan focused on increasing enrollment and community awareness. He also works directly with the media to answer all inquiries.
Additionally, in the spring of 2014, Summers was nationally recognized for the Ultimate Bengal social media campaign, which generated more than 180,000 entries in a three-month period, and effectively communicated ISU’s mission to a national audience.
“Ultimate Bengal was an awesome success, but also a huge challenge and undertaking,” Summers said. “It was the first time a university tried something like that using social media. That was a time as an administrative team we were able to step back and say ‘wow, there’s some enthusiasm on campus,’ students are excited and engaged and the community is getting excited too.”
Before working at KPVI-TV, Summers spent two years in Mongolia working as an English instructor to non-native speakers at the National University of Mongolia, the Erdenet Agricultural College and National Office of the Attorney General.
Summers said he speaks fluent Mongolian, and because he has such a love for traveling has visited Mongolia several times over the past few years. Additionally, because his current role with the College of Technology involves him traveling around to recruit, he wanted to ensure his new role would also support his passion.
“I wanted to make sure I would still have some opportunities to see the world and have some of those experiences because that’s important to me,” Summers said. “I want to be able to take a couple weeks off and hit the open road, and it’s great to know if I needed to leave, someone like Andy [Taylor], or Emily [Frandsen], or anybody else in the office has the capability to pick up the pieces.”
Andrew Taylor has acted in the capacity of interim director on multiple occasions when a new candidate is being selected, and he believes ISU made the right selection in choosing Summers.
“Stuart is a wonderful fit for the position,” Taylor said. “We are more than ready to welcome someone with such huge levels of excitement and energy to the team.”
