Tuesday, June 13, 2023

PORTLAND, Ore. – After spending the last 10 years closely involved with the Great Northwest Athletic Conference, Evan O’Kelly was named the assistant commissioner for communications announced by the conference office on Tuesday.

O’Kelly will begin his role with the GNAC on July 17 and replaces Blake Timm who held the position for eight years beginning with the 2015-16 season. Timm will leave the GNAC in July to become associate director of communications at Pacific University in Forest Grove, Oregon.

A native of Portland, O’Kelly started his athletic communications career as the GNAC media relations intern during the 2013-14 academic year. He went on to serve as the associate athletic director for communications at conference member Montana State University Billings for seven years, where he led the Yellowjacket media relations office.

During his time in Billings, O’Kelly oversaw sports communications duties for the Yellowjackets’ 16 men’s and women’s varsity sports, and worked closely alongside the GNAC office in all facets of coverage. Montana State Billings hosted numerous large-scale events, including the GNAC Championships for men’s and women’s basketball, baseball and cross country as well as the NCAA Cross Country West Region Championships.

O’Kelly also spent one year as the associate athletic director for communications at former GNAC member Concordia University Portland during the 2019-20 academic year. Most recently, he held the role of assistant director of communications at the University of New Mexico for the 2022-23 academic year.

“I am thankful to Dave Haglund for the opportunity to return to the conference office staff, and I look forward to working alongside him and (associate commissioner) Bridget Johnson Tetteh once again,” said O’Kelly. “I am looking forward to continuing the outstanding work Blake Timm did over the last eight years in this position promoting the conference’s student-athletes and schools and growing the GNAC’s comprehensive media footprint. I feel fortunate to have learned from both him and Bob Guptill, who both set a gold standard for sports information during their time at the GNAC.”

O’Kelly is a 2013 graduate of Linfield University, where he competed in baseball and spent two years as a sports information student assistant under the guidance of longtime communications director Kelly Bird.

O'Kelly is just the third director of communications in the 22-year history of the GNAC. Guptill was the conference's inaugaral information director, serving from 2001 to 2015. Timm, a 2020 inductee into the College Sports Communicators Hall of Fame, held the position from 2015 to 2023. O'Kelly received CSC's College Division Rising Star Award in 2018 during his tenure at MSUB.