Marti earned her Bachelor of Arts in Health and Applied Human Sciences from the University of North Carolina Wilmington, holds a Master of Science in Sports Leadership from Virginia Commonwealth University, and is currently pursuing her Doctorate in Higher Education Leadership also through VCU. Marti has oversight of the University Recreation Department which she believes is the “fun” place on campus, and she is grateful to provide students an outlet to focus on their well-being.  She is responsible for managing daily operations of the Weinstein Center for Recreation and Wellness as well as other indoor and outdoor recreation facilities on campus.   Marti is responsible for overseeing all programs and operations of University Recreation including: facility rentals, adventure and leadership, sport clubs, intramurals, recreational equipment purchases/maintenance, fitness programming and the operations at Member Services. Marti is active in her professional organization, NIRSA, serving on the NIRSA Foundation Board of Directors.  

In her free time, she enjoys spending time outside, especially running or hanging out on the Rappahannock River with her family, including twin boys Knox and Logan. Most recently, Marti has completed her Ed.D. in Higher Education Leadership at Virginia Commonwealth University. 

Heather received her Bachelors of Science in K-12 Health and Physical Education from Indiana University of Pennsylvania and her Masters of Public Health (MPH) in Community Health Education from East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania. Before joining the University of Richmond in her role as the Director of Health Promotion, Heather was the Interim Assistant Director for Fitness and Wellness at Old Dominion University (ODU) in Norfolk, VA. Prior to her employment at ODU, she was the Health Educator and Human Service Coordinator, Bernards Township Health Department, Basking Ridge, NJ. Heather began her career in education at Fremont Junior High School in Mesa, AZ and Canyon Breeze Elementary School in Avondale, AZ. 

Heather oversees all aspects of health promotion, employee and student well-being, Well-being Center operations, and the Center for Awareness Response and Education (CARE). Her duties include employee and student well-being outreach and implementation of campus wide well-being programming.  Heather is a certified Wellness Coach, Certified Health Education Specialist, and Tobacco Treatment Specialist; trained through the Mayo Clinic. Heather is also an instructor of the wellness graduation requirement WELL 100 and WELL 101 courses. 

She enjoys spending time with family and friends, teaching group fitness classes, and both recreational running and running after her two children. Most recently, Heather has completed her Ed.D. in Higher Education Leadership at Virginia Commonwealth University. 

Kevin leads a comprehensive campus recreation department that supports the health and well-being of the Rowan community. The department supports students through informal recreation, intramural sports, sport clubs, group fitness, personal training, and aquatics programs. Kevin’s energetic team of professional staff, graduate coordinators, and over 200 student and part-time staff supports campus well-being through multiple indoor and outdoor facilities, various and diverse programs and services, and initiatives that provide opportunities for student learning and growth. Through collaborations with a variety of divisions and departments, Kevin leads the integration of a well-being culture across the campus by helping students and employees who are navigating the dimensions of well-being: physical, emotional, community, social, financial, and purpose.

He attended Robert Morris University and obtained a B.S. in Business Administration with a specialization in Sport Management and has a M.E.S. in Sport Management from the University of Florida. While at UF, Kevin served as a graduate assistant of intramural sports at the Recreational Sports Department and served as a Summer Sports & Fitness Intern with the Navy MWR in La Maddalena, Italy. His Rowan University career began at the Rec Center in 2004. An active member of NIRSA – Leaders of Collegiate Recreation, Kevin has been recognized by the association with the Horace Moody Award for Student Development in 2006 and the Region I Award of Merit in 2019.

Kevin resides with his wife and 3 daughters in Haddonfield, NJ and enjoys spending his spare time officiating women’s collegiate basketball and playing in the Rowan Summer Employee Softball League.

Dr. Jessica Matthews is an associate professor and program director in the College of Health Sciences at Point Loma Nazarene University (PLNU). An award-winning and international educator, she created the Master of Science in Kinesiology- Integrative Wellness program at PLNU, an interdisciplinary graduate degree blending lifestyle and behavioral medicine. Additionally, Dr. Matthews serves as director of health and wellness coaching at UC San Diego Health. There, she spearheaded the development of health and wellness coaching services within clinical practice and research, to include establishing and supervising a team of national board-certified health and wellness coaches in the Centers for Integrative Health. 

Connect with her at @drjessmatthews.  

Laurie is the Executive Director of University Recreation at Louisiana State University.  She leads a team of 40 full-time staff and 350 student employees.  Prior to LSU, she served as Director of Campus Recreation at the University of Texas-Brownsville, ’07-‘10 and as Associate Director of programs and facilities at Central Michigan University, ‘99-‘07.  She received her bachelors degree from the University of Florida and masters degree from North Carolina State University.  She as been and active and engaged member of NIRSA for 34 years and is a past president of the NIRSA Board of Directors.

LSU University Recreation completed a four-year, $84.5 million dollar expansion and redesign that is 260,000 sq. ft. of indoor recreation & fitness space in 2017.  The facility includes a 1/3 of a mile indoor that spans two floors and includes an indoor 26-yard, 20-degree sloped functional training ramp, an indoor lap pool, a 35-foot climbing tower and bouldering area, an outdoor lap pool, and a leisure river.  The department operates a 23-acre outdoor sports complex with eight mulitpurpose fields and four softball fields.  Currently, UREC is expanding the high low ropes course that will include a 475’ zip line that drops into the UREC Park that is included in the department's operational portfolio.  

Laurie’s passions include the power of play, being out of doors, and the impact those experiences have on college student success.

William (Bill) Botten, Accessibility Specialist for PlayCore. Botten is an Exercise Physiology graduate from the University of Kansas and formally served as a senior accessibility specialist, a technical assistance coordinator, and the training coordinator for more than 22 years at the U.S. Access Board. Bill specializes in accessibility and inclusion issues related to recreation facilities and outdoor developed areas. His training experience includes hundreds of presentations to local, state, and national audiences on disability awareness, the inclusion of persons with disabilities, and accessibility standards. While at the Access Board, Bill was part of a team that developed the combined guidelines for the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Architectural Barriers Act as well as serving on several ASTM and RESNA committees for inclusive fitness equipment and play area surfaces.

Tom Norquist joined PlayCore as Sales and Marketing Director in 1993. 

Tom is a member of PlayCore’s Strategic Services team and leads a culture of innovation and business development activities while additionally mentoring GameTime’s PlayWorx custom play division. He works closely with over 50 direct/indirect reports to lead successful product and program innovation. 

Tom has over 40 years of industry experience and over 30 with the Company. 

Prior to joining PlayCore, Tom worked as Sales Manager at the Portland, Oregon-based Columbia Cascade Company from 1983-1993 where he was responsible for overall company sales and worked extensively in new product development and custom projects for both the commercial play and site amenities.

Tom earned Bachelor of Science degrees in Finance/Law and Marketing from Portland State University in 1982. 

As a founding board member in 1995, past president, past treasurer, past secretary and immediate past President of the International Play Equipment Manufacturer’s Association (IPEMA) and long-term active American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) representative, over the past 40 years, Tom Norquist has been involved in all aspects of the play industry. Over a decade ago, his leadership at IPEMA developed the voiceofplay.org initiative, touching millions with the message of the importance of play. He served from 2002-2004 on the Advisory Board for the National Program for Playground Safety (NPPS). For over a decade, he actively served on the (Access Board) Recreation Access Advisory Committee and Regulatory Negotiation meetings and additionally served on the advisory panel for the Access Board’s on-line Technical Assistance and Training for Play Area Accessibility. Tom served for 15 years on the Board for the International Playground Contractor’s Association (NPCAI), and is a founding steering committee member and active leader on the U.S. Coalition for Play. Tom is one of a few recipients of the coveted Joe L. Frost Play Research Collection National Play Advocate Award in April, 2008. 

Additionally, over the past decade, Tom has led Dr. Stuart Brown’s National Institute for Play (NIFP), currently is the President and is the project co-leader of the first known on-line database of scientific and academic research creating a cohesive picture about the proven scientific benefits of play. Tom is a Professor of Practice at Auburn University’s College of Architecture Design and Construction, School of Industrial and Graphic Design. He has received two Distinguished Service Awards for his leadership with 19 design studios over the past 17 years.

Trained in general and internal medicine, psychiatry and clinical research, Dr. Stuart Brown first recognized the importance of play by discovering its absence in the life stories of murders and felony drunken drivers. His years of clinical practice and review of over 6000 personal play histories affirmed the importance and need for healthy play throughout the human life cycle. His independent scholarship and exploration of the evolution and neuroscience of human and animal play have led to the establishment of the National Institute for Play. The Mission of the National Institute for Play (NIFP) is to bring the unrealized knowledge, practices and benefits of play into public life. Dr. Brown was the instigator and Executive Producer of the three-part PBS series, “The Promise of Play,” and coproduced the BBC-PBS series “Soul of the Universe.” His experience as a medical administrator, producer, and scientific consultant or creator to numerous other productions on Joseph Campbell, Cosmology, Animal Play, and Stress, plus his scientific and popular writings have identified him as the foremost “practical champion of the knowledge of play.” Dr. Brown’s book: Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul has been translated into twelve languages. He co-teaches From Play to Innovation at the Hasso Plattner School of Design at Stanford University, and has been the “Key Strategist” for the Nevada Medical Center’s Global Play Science Institute. In 2020 he was awarded the Joe L. Frost award for distinguished research by the USA Play Coalition.  In addition to regular creative scholarly contributions for the PlayCore company, he enjoys other international corporate and academic consulting on play and its many contributions through their engagement with it, as it enhances overall human well-being. As the information base about play grows, it is evident that play is a public health necessity. 

Our species, he says, “is built for play, and built by play.” 

TJ received his Masters Degree in Kinesiology and Health promotion with a dual degree in Environment and Natural Resources from the University of Wyoming. He has been in the Campus Recreation field since 2014. He was the Graduate Assistant for Operations at University of Wyoming, Programs Coordinator at Arizona State University, Facilities Coordinator at Colorado State University, and now Assistant Director for Facilities and Aquatics at Colorado State University. Outside of Campus Recreation, TJ enjoys relaxing with his two pet pigs, Gordon and Hamlet.

I'll be online during conference days, please visit the Networking section to message me if you want to connect or have more questions about my session!  

An alumna of Georgia Tech and Florida State, Brooke started her collegiate recreation career working in Intramural Sports where she developed a passion for leadership development.  She held professional positions at the University of North Georgia and Kennesaw State (primarily working with Intramural Sports, but also having responsibilities with a challenge course, outdoor program, summer camps, sport clubs, pool management, and building projects) before taking a position at the University of Alabama as the Assistant Director for Competitive Sports and later the Associate Director for UREC Programs.  Brooke is an active NIRSA member who served in numerous volunteer roles including Chair of the NIRSA Championship Series.  She was honored in 2020 with the Sarah Fain Distinguished Service Award.  In her spare time she enjoys spending time with her chocolate lab and cooking.  

I have been in aquatics & risk management for 16 years as a lifeguard, swim instructor, and swim coach. I have in active in NIRSA as a student and professional for 8 years. I am an American Red Cross Lifeguard Instructor Trainer, Water Safety Instructor Trainer, and CPR/First Aid Instructor Trainer as well as being a Certified Pool Operator. 

Education
Master's in Recreation & Leisure Services focusing on Recreation Administration
B.A of History