Tara Van Ness was promoted to Senior Associate Athletic Director. Van Ness oversees Florida Tech Athletics' Business Operations and serves as the supervisor for volleyball, baseball, and men's cross country and track.
She previously held the position of Associate Athletic Director for Business Operations, starting in April 2022. She joined Florida Tech as the Business Manager in February 2020.
Her responsibilities include all aspects that involves keeping the department on track financially. Major initiatives that fall within Van Ness's scope include leading the annual budget process, coordinating with the University’s business offices on tracking revenue and spending, and submitting the NCAA Financial and EADA annual reports. In addition to her responsibilities as the resident businessperson, Tara is a member of the Athletics Leadership Team and has sport-oversight for the Volleyball, Baseball, Men's Cross Country and Track Teams, as well as Esports.
She connects with the staff of the Athletics department because of their shared commitments to helping their Scholar-Athletes reach their full potential and, of course, strategizing to make sure that every dollar counts.
Van Ness's expertise in finance, accounting and operations stems from 28 years of experience in the business world. A native of Atlanta, GA, Van Ness spent the first twelve years of her career in corporate finance. In 2008, she shifted into operations management and spent the next eleven years in the retail and restaurant industries. While working as an independent consultant in 2019, Van Ness and her wife Carrie moved their two kids from the hills of Middle Tennessee to the Space Coast, settling down on the St. Johns River just west of Melbourne. She joined Florida Tech in February 2020 and said that her role is a combination of everything she has done previously in her career and is the perfect balance of business operations.
Van Ness says, “Something that many people may not know about me is that I have been scuba diving since I was in college and became an instructor in 2008! I taught scuba part-time for five years for a full-scale dive operation and retail center in North Atlanta until my company transferred me to Tennessee in 2013. When I started teaching for TDI/SDI/ERDI in 2020 as an independent instructor, Carrie and I founded the Gulf Stream Diving Society. Our goal is to build a community of divers over time, prioritizing safety, health, and the skills that earn them the right to play in that playground.”
As an undergrad, Van Ness majored in Finance, earning a Bachelor of Business Degree from Georgia Southern University (1996). She will graduate with a Florida Tech Master of Business Administration Degree in December 2024.
