CLEVELAND - The Collegiate Event and Facility Management Association (CEFMA) is proud to announce its 2021 Event Manager of the Year recipients; Jillian Cardella, assistant athletics director for facilities & event operations at Boston University and Brandon Kendrick, director of event management at the University of New Mexico.
 
The Event Manager of the Year Award recognizes an athletics administrator who has hosted an inordinate number of events/championships on their campus over the course of the year and strives to enhance the quality of the experience for participating institutions and guests.

"As our community has pivoted, adjusted, changed, rewrote, and restructured what our events look like over the past 14 months, it gives me great honor to represent the Board in celebrating two deserving winners of the Event Manager of the Year for CEFMA," stated Justin Newell, assistant athletics director, NCAA compliance and operations for Kenyon College and current CEFMA President. "Jillian and Brandon were exceptional in their efforts to bring events to their communities and campuses (or off campus!). Please join our Board in congratulating these two and all of our nominees for an amazing year!"

Jillian Cardella

In Cardella's current role, she oversees event operations at Boston University for eight athletics facilities and 24 varsity programs. In addition, she is also responsible for the development and management of the operations team, which is comprised of three operations assistants. She is a leader that aims to provide the highest level of hospitality for not only her teams, but also the visiting teams.

Most notably, during the pandemic she took on the role of serving as point person for the 2020 Women's Ice Hockey Frozen Four host bid. Although COVID-19 ultimately led to this event being canceled, Cardella did her best to create a championship experience that the student-athletes, coaches, and staff will remember. On top of this, she created a tournament manual for future hosts as a roadmap to future, successful events.

Brandon Kendrick

Kendrick is currently the director of event management at New Mexico, where due to the New Mexico public health order, was not able to host any events in the state for nearly a year. During the pandemic, he had to relocate in order to successfully host events for his teams.

As part of this relocation, Kendrick went to Las Vegas so the football team could participate in a season; followed by a stint in Texas for both men's and women's basketball games; and ending back on campus with four days to prepare to host baseball games. During these relocations, he was expected to handle team and equipment operations, while also creating the home game atmosphere at these remote locations with signage, banners, and television production.

About CEFMA: CEFMA is dedicated to the needs of collegiate level event and facility professionals and the challenges that exist within the scope of their responsibilities. CEFMA will seek to promote the growth, leadership, integrity and success of administrators and professional staff in collegiate athletics. For more information about CEFMA, please visit www.cefma.net. CEFMA is administered by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA), which is in its 56^th year. For more information on NACDA and the 17 professional associations that fall under its umbrella, please visit www.nacda.com.