When Valerie Johnson accepted a position with the Multnomah Athletic Club in Portland in August 2021, it was a chance for the career college athletics administrator to take on a new challenge, in the state that had become her home over the previous decade.
In some ways, the job was familiar: she oversaw a multimillion-dollar budget with a staff numbering in the hundreds, and for a club that managed more than two dozen sports and fitness offerings. But in at least one major way, it was different – autumn of 2021 was the first fall in 25 years that Johnson didn't spend on a college campus.