Richard (Dick) Kaiser
Director of Intercollegiate Athletics
Combining a passion for providing an exceptional student-athlete experience with thoughtful business acumen, Dick Kaiser, EDD, director of intercollegiate athletics, is forging an ambitious path in leading the Mines Athletic program into their future membership in the NCAA Division II.
Kaiser brings a wealth of experience and knowledge to his position, having worked in athletics for 40 years. Getting his start as the athletic director and head football, basketball, and baseball coach at Pawnee High School in Colorado, Kaiser soon switched to higher education, and served as a South Dakota State University graduate assistant football coach for the next two years.
Over the following two decades, Kaiser's career took him across the county, from Kansas, where he accepted a position as the assistant athletic director, head baseball coach, and defensive coordinator for the football team at Dodge City Community College; to Oklahoma, working as an assistant football coach, instructor, and head men's tennis coach at Southwestern Oklahoma State University; to Utah, where he served as the middle linebacker coach for the Brigham Young University football team. After a four-year stint at Idaho State University as the football team's defensive coordinator, Kaiser moved west to Oregon where he worked as the athletic director at both Willamette University and Western Oregon University.
In 1993, Kaiser switched career tracks, pursing a more entrepreneurial endeavor as the owner and operator of a glass repair and replacement business in Salem, Oregon. Diving back into the world of college athletics in 1995, Kaiser served as director of intercollegiate athletics at both Olivet College in Michigan and Defiance College in Ohio for a combined total of fourteen years before joining the School of Mines campus community in 2009.
Currently acting as an executive board member of the NCAA Division II Athletics Directors Association, Kaiser also serves on two local civic organizations that are focused in the operation, growth, and development of the American Legion baseball programs in Rapid City.
Kaiser earned his bachelor of arts from the University of Northern Colorado and his master of education from South Dakota State University. After receiving his doctorate of education from Brigham Young University, Kaiser completed a post-doctorate in health education from Oregon State University.