As a high school student in the 1980s, Erich Martens attended New Ulm when Dave Stead served as principal. In 2015-16, Martens worked beside Stead as president of the Minnesota State High School League board of directors. On Monday, Martens was named Stead's successor as executive director.
Martens, 51, became the league's first new executive director since 1988. A school principal for more than a decade, Martens was approved at a special board of directors meeting at league headquarters in Brooklyn Center.
He had been recommended from a group of three finalists by the league's selection committee. On a roll-call vote, 15 members voted yes, two abstained and three were absent.
"I'm really excited to be connected with the organization and back with a great staff and a really quality board," said Martens, principal at Sauk Rapids-Rice High School. A former teach and coach, Martens said his new position, "is just a way to broaden that impact and grow professionally."
He takes over an organization with nearly 500 member schools that oversees high school sports and activities statewide. The league generates most of its revenue from state tournaments.
Stead, who announced in August that he was relinquishing the job, is the longest-serving executive director in the league's 101-year history. He is the nation's second-longest tenured leader of a state high school athletic association. Stead, 74, will assume a senior administrative role with the organization after he steps down around Feb. 1.
The board initially planned to consider the committee's recommendation at its regularly scheduled board meeting on Nov. 30. But last week, after publicizing the three finalists on Nov. 13, board President Dave Swanberg told board members in a letter that "all parties would be better served'' by moving up the board vote.
He noted that a provisional round of candidate interviews scheduled for last Thursday was not needed and that background, reference and contractual aspects could be completed last week.
Speeding up the timeline became one more reason the process drew criticism. Board member Rob Carpentier, the athletic director at Christo Rey Jesuit High School in Minneapolis, and Shakopee's Eric Christenson, representing the Minnesota Music Educators Association, each voiced their concerns to the board before abstaining from Monday's vote.
Carpentier, who represents a geographic region of schools, said Monday that he received 41 e-mails from activities directors who wondered "why this process moved so fast and why we never asked for input."
Swanberg and attorney Roger Aronson, the league's lobbyist, addressed Carpentier's remarks.
"We don't want anyone thinking there's some kind of conspiracy," Swanberg said.
Martens, named principal of the year in 2013 by the Minnesota Association of Secondary School Principals, said, "I heard there were questions about process and communication. And transparency is a word that's thrown out a lot these days. I think there are ways we can be strategic about sharing information, look back on the process and learn from it."
