Josh Thiel, an accomplished fundraising professional and seasoned administrator with two decades of successful experiences in higher education, was named San Jose State University’s deputy director of athletics for advancement in January 2018.
His primary responsibility includes leading the Athletics Advancement team dedicated to collaborating with San Jose State Athletics on expanding support for student-athletes, coaches, and the department’s 22 NCAA sports programs. He also serves as a sports supervisor for women’s tennis, men’s water polo and women’s water polo.
Since joining the Spartans, he oversaw the transition of the 50-year old Spartan Foundation to the recently created Spartan Athletics Fund as the primary annual year-round giving platform for San Jose State University Athletics. He also helped close seven-figure gifts in support of the planned Football Operations Center that will benefit the football and soccer programs and be a resource for all Spartan student-athletes.
Thiel came to San Jose State from Rice University where he served as a senior associate athletics director and chief development officer from 2014 through January 2018. He and his team completed $41.5 million in fundraising for three capital projects including a football operations and student-athlete training center, locker and team rooms for six sports, a grandstand and team space for track, and a new batting cage and hospitality area for baseball.
Familiar with the Bay Area landscape, Thiel also served as an associate development director for Stanford Athletics and the Stanford University School of Medicine. He served as a development liaison for football, men’s basketball, baseball, men’s and women’s soccer, softball, women’s lacrosse, synchronized swimming, men’s and women’s volleyball, men’s and women’s water polo, and wrestling. For the Stanford School of Medicine, he raised $3-million for the medical school’s Li Ka Shing Center for Learning and Knowledge.
He also served as a development officer for the University of Colorado Hospital in Boulder, Colo., from 2010 to 2012 raising funds for the top-ranked academic medical center in the country, and, specifically, the O’Connor Thompson Breast Center.
Thiel is a 1996 graduate of California State University Fullerton. He majored in business administration with a concentration in finance. Thiel earned a master’s degree in sport management from the University of San Francisco in 1999.
Josh Thiel