Austin Kaiser, ’14
The first time Austin Kaiser visited CMU in 2009, he felt like he belonged.
The baseball outfielder chose CMU because it provided a perfect blend of opportunities to play baseball and study exercise science. The school’s size appealed to him, too.
“It’s big enough where you can meet someone new every day, but at the same time it’s small enough where you’re seeing familiar faces every day, too,” said Kaiser, who obtained a bachelor’s degree in exercise science and minored in business and sports management.
After achieving a breadth of accomplishments and accolades while on the baseball team, where he was a part of the 2014 NCAA Division II Championship Game his senior year — Kaiser was inspired to make a career out of collegiate athletics, earning a master’s degree in sports administration from the University of Alabama.
Then he was presented with an offer he couldn’t refuse: a chance to work as an assistant athletic director at CMU, a position he held for six years.
“It was so fun to be involved in the campus and the community through a different lens, not just as a college student,” he said.
When he and his wife, Lauren, and oldest child, now five, relocated to Colorado Springs to be near family with their second born following close behind, Kaiser joined a cadet-matching program with the local Air Force Academy.
“Sometimes the cadets just want to get a home-cooked meal, a ride to the airport or someone to show them around town,” said Kaiser, who has been matched with two cadets since joining. “Other times, they may want more of a mentorship.”
The experience was so meaningful that Kaiser recently had an “aha” moment: ‘While the program was designed for cadets far from home, why not expand it to other campuses?’
“My wife and I both went away to school, and we agreed that we would have loved this type of program,” he said.
His program, called Sponsor Families, started in early 2024. The program inaugurated its resource network with CMU, and he hopes to expand it to other campuses and get business students involved as program directors as well.
“I hope it enhances a student’s experience so that they walk away as a more engaged student, a more successful student and a more satisfied alumni,” he said.