UCF’s Associate AD of Business wins award as Orlando’s top nonprofit CFO

On June 8, Senior Associate Athletic Director of Business/Chief Financial Officer Brad Stricklin was honored by the Orlando Business Journal as the top nonprofit CFO in the Central Florida business community.

Stricklin has been with the UCF Athletics Association since March 2006. He oversees business operations, human resources and information technology departments, and he is the sport administrator for volleyball and golf.

Stricklin said his deep love of sports and ability to deal with the financial side of sports after being a sports manager for the University of Southern Mississippi led to his current position.

Andy Seeley, UCF’s assistant athletics director for communications, met Stricklin a few months ago during his interview for his position and was very impressed with Stricklin and his staff.

“[Stricklin] is obviously very knowledgeable in his area and extremely helpful,” Seeley said.

Seeley started his position at the beginning of this month, and Stricklin and his staff have helped him with his transition.

“[Stricklin] and his staff have been great for me by teaching me about the budgets here and business practices,” Seeley said.

He also understands why the Orlando Business Journal honored Stricklin.

“It’s clear that he is really well respected and regarded not only in our department but in Orlando, and I think that speaks as to why he was honored by the Orlando Business Journal,” Seeley said.

The reason for the honor is Stricklin’s five-year financial plan that hopes to restructure debt to allow capital growth. It also led to UCF’s invite into the Big East Conference.

“[The plan] was to show where we are financially and where we believe we can go as members of the Big East,” Stricklin said.

He explained that the plan projects where UCF’s athletics budget will go in the next five years with hopes to pay off two loans from the university and a local bank that helped the athletic departments build their facilities.

“We worked with the university to set up a good structure that would allow us to repay the debt that we have with them without hurting our operations,” Stricklin said.

Stricklin believes working through a good repayment plan with the bank would free up some money to increase operations at a higher level. The personal growth that he sees will be determined by the amount of money the Big East brings in.

“We do believe that obviously a more attractive football and basketball schedule will enhance our revenue areas,” Stricklin said.

He also explained that the athletics department has high hopes that the plan will run its full five-year course.

“Like with any plan you would call it a moving target a little bit, you never know what will happen ultimately but we felt like the plan was fairly conservative and we should be in good shape,” Stricklin said. “We’re really excited about joining the Big East, and we think the sky is the limit.”

Stricklin found out he was nominated for the award about a month before he won when he received letters and emails from the Orlando Business Journal staff. He was announced as the winner during the Orlando Business Journal’s award ceremony luncheon. He’s not aware of who nominated him for the award, but he is glad that someone was kind enough to do that for him.

“It’s definitely an honor to be nominated and to be recognized by the Orlando business community, and I appreciate the work that my staff does,” Stricklin said.

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