{"id":15968,"date":"2021-01-15T20:00:05","date_gmt":"2021-01-15T20:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fiualumni.com\/stay-connected\/alumni-news\/newsroom\/?p=15968"},"modified":"2021-02-01T21:33:08","modified_gmt":"2021-02-01T21:33:08","slug":"brian-breittholz-named-new-fiu-avp-for-alumni-relations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fiualumni.com\/stay-connected\/alumni-news\/newsroom\/index.php\/2021\/01\/15\/brian-breittholz-named-new-fiu-avp-for-alumni-relations\/","title":{"rendered":"Brian Breittholz named new FIU AVP for alumni relations"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2013By Clara-Meretan Kiah and Todd Ellenberg for FIU News<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Brian Breittholz\u00a0is FIU’s new associate vice president for alumni relations\u00a0and chief alumni officer.<\/p>\n

Breittholz, an accomplished higher education leader with a wealth of experience\u00a0in alumni relations, development,\u00a0student affairs\u00a0and communications, joins FIU after serving seven years as Cleveland State University\u2019s\u00a0(CSU)\u00a0assistant vice president for alumni affairs and executive director of the university\u2019s alumni association.<\/p>\n

During his tenure at\u00a0CSU,\u00a0Breittholz\u00a0dramatically increased\u00a0the volume and variety of activities to engage the school\u2019s 130,000 alumni, ranging from programming\u00a0and\u00a0events, chapter activities, and volunteer engagement to alumni awards, member benefits, and\u00a0communications\u00a0and\u00a0outreach. He leveraged his prior capital campaign experience to help launch\u00a0the $100 million\u00a0Engage for CSU, the\u00a0university\u2019s first comprehensive campaign, closely aligning\u00a0engagement programs with\u00a0campaign priorities.\u00a0He managed a $1 million-plus annual budget and a team of 11 associates.<\/p>\n

“We are very excited to welcome Brian to the FIU Alumni family,\u201d said two-time alumnus and\u00a0president of the FIU Alumni Association Michael Hernandez.\u00a0\u201cI look forward to working with him and drawing from his extensive professional experience as we endeavor to better serve the 260,0000-strong Panther alumni community and provide new, innovative, engaging and exciting programming and content to our alumni.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prior to CSU,\u00a0Breittholz\u00a0was\u00a0senior alumni programs\u00a0officer of the Indiana University Alumni Association and\u00a0served in several\u00a0roles\u00a0during his 19 years at Miami University: director of alumni education and associate director of the\u00a0alumni\u00a0association; director of Advancement\u00a0and Development for Student Affairs; and director of Greek Affairs. He started his career at the University of Akron,\u00a0where he was assistant director of Student Development and coordinator of Fraternity and Sorority Life.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are delighted that Brian, a professional with such an esteemed record of accomplishment, is joining our FIU team,\u201d said Howard R. Lipman, FIU senior vice president of University Advancement and CEO of the FIU Foundation, Inc. \u201cWith his leadership, we look forward to\u00a0strengthening engagement with our ever-growing alumni base, who are a significant asset to the university and our community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Breittholz\u00a0earned a bachelor\u2019s degree from the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University\u00a0(OU)\u00a0and\u00a0a master\u2019s degree in College Student Personnel from OU.\u202fHe succeeds\u00a0Duane Wiles, who left FIU last year to\u00a0become associate vice chancellor of Alumni Affairs at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.<\/p>\n

“To say I’m excited to join the FIU community is an understatement,”\u00a0Breittholz\u00a0said. “I’m so impressed with our accomplishments, and believe we have unlimited opportunities to leverage the pride and the passion of our alumni to further advance FIU for generations to come.”<\/p>\n

FIU News sat down with Breittholz to learn more about him and his new role:<\/em><\/p>\n

FIU News:\u00a0<\/strong>You’ve spent much of your life in the Northern and Midwest U.S. Are you looking forward to establishing new roots?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Breittholz:<\/strong>\u00a0I\u2019m looking forward to beginning this new chapter in my life as a new Floridian. I was born and raised in New York (with a brief stint in Broward County) and spent my professional career in the Midwest. I plan on immediately trading in my snow boots for a pair of sandals.<\/p>\n

FIU has a vast and ever-growing alumni base that spans the world over. It is also a relatively young university with a large proportion of alumni who were nontraditional students during their studies. How can we, as a university, work to serve and engage such a diverse and extensive community of Panthers?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I truly enjoyed working with our nontraditional students\/alumni while I led Cleveland State\u2019s alumni program. These students bring rich life experiences to the classroom, balance so many different life demands, and genuinely appreciate the education they received from our faculty.\u00a0I am excited to work hand-in-hand with FIU’s diverse alumni groups as our team strives to be a resource to them.\u00a0The FIU Alumni Association recognizes and values the contributions of all of our alumni and seeks to find ways to engage Panther alumni at different life stages, with different life interests. We are here for each and every graduate, and future graduates.<\/p>\n

We know that alumni play a key role in the vitality and continued success of their alma mater. What can Panthers do to stay engaged with FIU, and why it is important to stay connected to the alma mater even many years after graduation?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Being a student is just the beginning of the FIU experience. Whether you\u2019re enrolled as an undergraduate or in one of our graduate\/professional programs, you\u2019re a Panther for life. There are so many ways to connect and engage, whether it\u2019s through attending a networking\/social event, attending an athletic event or cultural experience, recruiting future students to FIU, mentoring a current student, advocating for FIU with lawmakers, or making a regular gift to support programs that are meaningful for you\u2026the opportunities are plentiful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2013By Clara-Meretan Kiah and Todd Ellenberg for FIU News Brian Breittholz\u00a0is FIU’s new associate vice president for alumni relations\u00a0and chief alumni officer. Breittholz, an accomplished higher education leader with a wealth of experience\u00a0in alumni relations, development,\u00a0student affairs\u00a0and communications, joins FIU after serving seven years as Cleveland State University\u2019s\u00a0(CSU)\u00a0assistant vice president for alumni affairs and executive […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":15988,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[453,415,12],"class_list":["post-15968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","tag-alumni","tag-alumni-association","tag-fiu-alumni"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fiualumni.com\/stay-connected\/alumni-news\/newsroom\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15968"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fiualumni.com\/stay-connected\/alumni-news\/newsroom\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fiualumni.com\/stay-connected\/alumni-news\/newsroom\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fiualumni.com\/stay-connected\/alumni-news\/newsroom\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fiualumni.com\/stay-connected\/alumni-news\/newsroom\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15968"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/fiualumni.com\/stay-connected\/alumni-news\/newsroom\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15968\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15989,"href":"https:\/\/fiualumni.com\/stay-connected\/alumni-news\/newsroom\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15968\/revisions\/15989"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fiualumni.com\/stay-connected\/alumni-news\/newsroom\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fiualumni.com\/stay-connected\/alumni-news\/newsroom\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fiualumni.com\/stay-connected\/alumni-news\/newsroom\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fiualumni.com\/stay-connected\/alumni-news\/newsroom\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}