COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – The Mountain West announced today the addition of four members to the Conference staff.

Julie Owen (senior associate commissioner, governance and compliance), Chris Brown (associate commissioner, governance and compliance), Karlie Drew (assistant director, Mountain West Network) and Litzy Renteria (assistant director, digital and social media) all officially join the MW staff on Monday, July 22.

Owen comes to the MW from Kansas State University, where she has served as senior associate athletics director for compliance and a member of the department’s senior leadership team since May 2021. Prior to that, Owen spent nine years at Mississippi in the same role. At both stops, she was a sport administrator and part of sport administrator leadership groups responsible for discussing policies and issues related to day-to-day operations.

A current member of the NCAA Legislative Committee, Owen has been a member of the Modernization of Rules, Legislative Process, and Transfers Issues subcommittees. She is also a current member of the Women’s Basketball Oversight Committee Legislative Subcommittee.

Prior to her time at Ole Miss, Owen served as a director of compliance at Oklahoma from 2008-11 and at Wright State from 2007-08. She was a compliance intern at Wisconsin-Green Bay in 2006.

Owen’s first stint at a conference office came in 2003 when she began a nine-month tenure at the Sun Belt as a championships assistant. She served as a ticket office intern at Wake Forest from 2000-01.

An assistant instructional professor at Mississippi since 2020, Owen also helped create a graduate certificate in intercollegiate athletics and one in athletics academic success.

A native of Neenah, Wisconsin, Owen earned an economics degree from Colorado College before completing postgraduate degrees in business administration and sports administration and facility management from Ohio University. She added a juris doctor from the University of Denver and a doctorate in higher education from Mississippi.

Brown comes to the MW after a two-year tenure as the commissioner of the Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association. As the Chief Executive Officer of the nine-member Division III conference, Brown was the 10th leader in the 136-year history of the league. He ensured compliance, cost controls and revenue growth by overseeing the operational, financial and legal affairs of the conference.

Prior to his time at the MIAA, Brown was a senior associate athletics director at the University of Delaware. Before that, he was a compliance consultant at the Great Northeast Athletic Conference from 2018-22 and worked at the NCAA national office as an associate director of academic and membership affairs from 2014-20. Brown spent more than a year at Southeast Missouri State University as an assistant director of compliance.

A consultant for the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics since 2020, Brown has also held a variety of teaching positions, as he has served as an adjunct professor at Boston College; a lecturer in sport management, Chief Diversity Officer, and graduate teaching assistant at University of Kansas; and an adjunct instructor at Spalding University and North Central College.

The Colorado Springs, Colorado, native earned a history degree from Colorado State University before adding a master’s in health and human performance from Austin Peay and a doctorate in sport management from Kansas.

Drew comes to the MW after a three-year stint at KOLO 8 News Now in Reno, Nevada, where served as a multimedia journalist, sports reporter and fill-in anchor. From her position as a morning reporter, Drew created the Good Morning Reno Sports Desk with Karlie Drew segment. She was also responsible for editing and crafting her own sports feature packages.

Prior to and during her tenure at KOLO 8 News Now, Drew served as a parabolic microphone operator for CBS from September 2020 to May 2022. She was a sports writing intern at Best Version Media in 2021 and served as editor-in-chief and graphics and marketing supervisor for the Associated Students of the University of Nevada (ASUN) Wolf Shop.

A native of Las Vegas, Drew graduated with a journalism degree from Nevada.

Renteria comes to the MW after spending the last two years as an assistant director of digital media at Converse University in Spartanburg, South Carolina, where she filmed, edited and posted creative content to the school’s athletic department and individual sport social media channels. Renteria also designed graphics, supervised work-study students and coordinated media day for 21 sports.

In addition to her duties at Converse, Renteria served as a seasonal video production associate for the Charlotte Knights, the Triple-A affiliate of the Chicago White Sox, since March 2023.

A native of Commerce City, Colorado, Renteria was a game operations intern for the Colorado Eagles, an affiliate of the Colorado Avalanche, from October 2021 to May 2022.

A Colorado State graduate, Renteria worked for Ram Productions from June 2021 to May 2022 as a director, camera operator and social media manager while pursuing her degree in journalism and media communications. She began her collegiate career at Limestone University in Gaffney, South Carolina, where she was a member of the Saints’ inaugural acrobatics & tumbling team before transferring to CSU.

-mw-