Assistant Coaches

Taylor R. Randall was selected by the Utah Board of Higher Education to serve as the 17th president of the University of Utah on August 5, 2021. He comes to the position after serving as both the dean and an accounting professor in the David Eccles School of Business.

In the first week of his presidency, Randall established a campus-wide transition team to set about the task of developing a strategic plan to help the university thrive under his leadership. Randall charged the transition team to be bold, quoting Nobel laureate Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, “If your dreams don’t scare you, they aren’t big enough.”

The president and the transition team determined that four cross-cutting objectives would serve as the bedrock of his administration: equity, diversity, and inclusion; campus safety; sustainability; and academic freedom.

From these objectives Randall seeks to launch a series of initial programmatic areas of presidential focus that include: • Research innovation and creativity— continue the U’s momentum as a leader in research scholarship, and generation of knowledge that seeks to solve major challenges. • Student experiences—identify areas to expand and deepen all dimensions of the student experience. • One U—work across disciplines and boundaries to maximize the university’s effectiveness and in turn better serve the community, state, and beyond.

While serving as dean from 20092021, Randall worked to earn the David Eccles School of Business (DESB) a national reputation as a place of innovation. His efforts dramatically increased the value of a DESB education: The school now holds top 10 entrepreneurship rankings for both undergraduate and graduate programs, and seven of the school’s programs are currently ranked in the top 25 in the nation.

Under his leadership, the business school also expanded experiential learning opportunities with the creation of the Goff Strategic Leadership Center, the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute, the Marriner S. Eccles Institute for Economics and Quantitative Analysis, and the Sorenson Impact Center, offering students unique experiential opportunities in fields ranging from finance to social impact to policy creation.

Randall began his career at the U as a professor of accounting from 19992009. He received awards for the best teacher in the MBA, Executive MBA, and undergraduate programs, as well as the Brady Superior Teaching Award, which is a career achievement award. Under his guidance as faculty director, the University Venture Fund (a real-world investing learning experience) became the largest student-run venture fund in the country. His academic research has examined the interactions between strategy, technology, products, and value chain structure, with an emphasis on how these interactions affect financial performance in organizations. His professional experience includes consulting positions with Arthur Andersen & Co., General Motors Corporation, Dupont, MPM/Speedline Technologies, O.C. Tanner Company, Vista Staffing Solutions, and American Investment Bank.

He graduated from the University of Utah in 1990 with honors in accounting and earned an MBA and a doctorate in operations and information management from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. He follows in the footsteps of both his father and grandfather as a third-generation U alumnus and professor. His father, Reed Randall BA’63, was also a professor of accounting, and his grandfather Clyde Randall BA’32 JD’53 served as dean of the DESB from 1958-68.

Randall and his wife, Janet, have four children, one daughter-in-law, and one sonin-law. He loves spending family time playing games, relaxing in the backyard, mountain biking, road biking, golfing, and all things sports-related.

DIRECTOR OF ATHLETICS | 5TH YEAR

Mark Harlan is in his fifth year serving as the Director of Athletics at the University of Utah. A veteran administrator with a deep history in the Pac-12 Conference, Harlan came to Salt Lake City with more than 20 years of intercollegiate athletics experience at five different universities.

During his tenure at Utah, Harlan has overseen significant success in competition, in the classroom, in the community, and in fundraising, with marked improvements to the student-athlete experience.

The 2021-22 school year was the Utes’ most successful in competition since joining the Pac12 in 2011, as Utah earned its highest ranking in the final LEARFIELD Director’s Cup standings since 1997-98. Seven of Utah’s sport programs earned NCAA postseason berths and football played in yet another bowl game, the most Utah teams in postseason since joining the Pac-12. The football team played in a New Year’s Six Bowl, with its first Rose Bowl berth, and was one of four Utah teams to win a conference championship, along with gymnastics (Pac-12), skiing (RMISA) and lacrosse (ASUN regular season). Utah has won four Pac-12 team championships and nine total conference championships when including RMISA and ASUN affiliations, since 2018.

Under Harlan, the Utes have also captured three NCAA team championships (skiing), had two third-place NCAA Championships finishes (gymnastics) and earned 23 team NCAA Championships invitations or bowl bids. All three skiing national championships have been achieved under the leadership of Director of Skiing Fredrik Landstedt, Harlan’s first head coach hire in 2018.

Since 2018, the football program claimed its third Pac-12 South Division championship in the past four years (2018, ’19 & ’21); the volleyball program has competed in six consecutive NCAA tournaments with a Sweet 16 appearance in 2019; the men’s tennis, women’s cross-country and men’s golf programs have advanced to NCAA Championships team competitions, and the Utes achieved their highest final fall ranking in the 2019 Learfield/IMG Director’s Cup, ranking 18th , third among Pac-12 schools.

Academic achievement has risen to new heights under Harlan’s leadership, with Utah’s student-athletes posting the top four semester GPAs on record, including a program-best 3.57 GPA in Spring 2020. In each of his first three years at Utah, the Utes’ student-athletes broke the previous record for full-year GPA, including a top GPA of 3.407 in 2020-21, followed by a stellar 3.315 average GPA for 2021-22, third-best all-time.

Utah recorded its fourth consecutive year at 93-percent or higher in the NCAA Graduation Success Rate (GSR) report for 2021, with its score ranking second among Pac-12 departments behind only Stanford. This record stretch includes a school-record 95-percent figure in 2018, followed by 94-percent rates in 2019 and 2020 and the 93-percent score in 2021.

Harlan has spearheaded fundraising efforts that have raised more than $60 million for capital projects, including the development of the Ken Garff Red Zone at Rice-Eccles Stadium, which opened in 2021 and expanded the stadium’s capacity to 51,444 while also enclosing the stadium’s south end. The expansion added new team locker room facilities, club spaces, suites and premium seating—all of which sold out prior to the grand opening. Harlan and then-University of Utah President Ruth V. Watkins originally unveiled plans for the project in November 2018, and in April 2019, announced the Ken Garff family’s $17.5 donation, the largest gift in Utah Athletics history.

Continued upgrades of Utah’s athletics facilities under Harlan has also included the expansion of the Dumke Gymnastics Center, which broke ground in March 2022 and will modernize and improve the home of the 10time national champion Red Rocks program, as well as construction of the David S. Layton Golf Academy, the on-campus training facility for Utah’s men’s golf team, which opened in January 2021. Located on Guardsman Way, across from the Spence and Cleone Eccles Football Center, the 7,000-square foot, $2.9 million golf training facility provides state-of-the-art technology for Utah’s student-athletes to enhance every aspect of their performance.

The health and wellness of student-athletes is a priority for Harlan and has been reflected in his work with the Crimson Council and with Utah’s Student-Athletic Advisory Committee, to enhance mental health resources for students.