By Timothy R. Olsen, ’09, ’18 MBA | Photos by Levi Sim

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It was the summer of ’89 when Brad Mortensen, recently graduated from Madison High School, was driving around Rexburg, Idaho, and was flagged down by his high school football coach.

Kelly Thompson wanted his former quarterback to be the offensive coordinator for the school’s sophomore football team that fall. And Mortensen — who says he had recently developed an interest in coaching due to his “athletic limitations being recognized” — jumped at the opportunity.

“I got to have my experience coaching football and realized that I did not want to do that for a career,” Mortensen recalls with a smile. “I’m pretty sure we lost every game, and half the games the offense was shut out. I thought, I’m not good at this.”

Though his coaching career never took off, the experience did spark a desire in Mortensen, recently named the 18th president of Utah State University, to work in education.

Following a two-year mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Korea Pusan Mission, he returned home to Idaho where he studied political science at Ricks College (now BYU–Idaho). While there, he met his wife, Camille, whose father, Ken Howell, was serving as public relations director for the college.

“There are other jobs in higher education besides teaching? How do you get one of those?” Mortensen remembers thinking.

SMALL-TOWN ROOTS

A first-generation college student, Mortensen says the importance of higher education was instilled in he and his siblings at a young age by his parents, Leon and Barbara.

“They set the stage very clearly and wanted it for their kids, because they wanted us not to face any barriers for not having an education like they had seen,” Mortensen says.

Leon worked essentially two full-time jobs, running the family farm while also working at a potato processing plant in Rexburg. And though Mortensen and his brothers often helped with chores, he says his parents went to great lengths to provide their children time to pursue their passions.

“[My father] felt like when he was growing up, he didn’t have a lot of opportunities because he was tied to the farm, milking the cows and doing all the chores every day,” Mortensen says. “He didn’t want my brothers and me to have that experience.”

And while Mortensen learned the importance of hard work from his parents, as well as his own efforts on the farm, he says the thing that’s stuck with him the most throughout his life is the attitude of caring he learned there. The amount of attention Leon showed to every single animal, as well as the crops and land, left a lasting impression.

“I think I learned how to care on the farm more than I learned how to work hard,” Mortensen explains. “Because if you care, then you just do what needs to be done. That has shaped me a lot.”

That level of care is certainly something that jumped out to Camille when the couple first met in the early ’90s. From their dates bailing hay on the farm to the decades now spent in higher education, that caring nature has shined through.

“One of Brad’s greatest strengths — from the day I met him — is that he is so humble,” Camille says. “He never sees it as a burden or a downside to his job that people need his advice or his care. He is there for anybody that needs his help.”

AN EDUCATIONAL JOURNEY

After graduating with his associate’s degree from Ricks in 1993, Mortensen moved south to Logan where he earned his bachelor’s in political science in 1995. He becomes the first USU president to have earned a degree from the school since Glen L. Taggart (1968–1979), the namesake of the school’s student center.

While Mortensen was pursuing his political science degree, Camille — who had graduated from Ricks with an associate degree in nursing — worked as an RN at the Franklin County Medical Center in Preston. Oftentimes the only RN on staff during the night shift, she took in ambulances and delivered babies just a year removed from school.

“She’s always been in critical care situations, emergency room situations, and those are stressful, lifesaving endeavors,” Mortensen says. “She does that professionally and then she does that literally and figuratively for our family. She’s truly my closest friend and advisor and a very important part of all of this.”

The couple returned to Madison County following Mortensen’s time at Utah State, taking with them a love of Cache Valley and Aggie Blue Mint ice cream. Back at Ricks, Mortensen had the opportunity to work in an administrative internship under then college president Steven D. Bennion.

“I was a gopher for all of the vice presidents, and they would give me different projects to work on,” Mortensen remembers. “It was a great experience and really helped me learn how a college works.”

That internship also provided Mortensen with the next steps of his educational journey. One that took him from Southeastern Idaho to Central New York. Mortensen says Bennion advised him to be a budget analyst because “you learn how money flows,” so he started researching Public Administration master’s programs.

He settled on the MPA program at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs for a couple of reasons. One, it’s the oldest public administration program in the country and consistently ranks as one of the top programs, and two, it offered a 12-month, straight-through program.

Mortensen remembers the first day of his public budgeting class where he was the only individual out of his 120-person cohort to raise his hand when the professor, Jeffrey Straussman, asked the group who wanted to be a budget analyst.

“I went to Syracuse to become a budget analyst, and it worked out,” Mortensen says. “I received three offers to be a budget analyst — one in Illinois, one in Wisconsin, and one in Arizona. I picked the one in Arizona just because it was more out West. Twelve months on the East Coast was enough for me.”

After Arizona, the Mortensens returned to Utah in 1998 where Brad — who added a doctoral degree in educational leadership and policy from the University of Utah — worked for the Governor’s Office of Planning and Budget and then the Utah System of Higher Education. In 2004 he joined Weber State University, eventually serving as Vice President of University Advancement for 11 years before being named the school’s president in 2018.

ARE WE THE PROBLEM?

“It’s a miracle we have any students at all.”

That’s what Mortensen remembers thinking after spending an evening trying to get his oldest daughter, Brynn, then a senior in high school, registered for a class at Weber State.

She needed to take a chemistry class not offered through Ogden High School, so she was going to take it through Weber State. However, Mortensen found the endeavor tougher than anticipated.

“I remember going back to campus the next day and saying, ‘This process is not friendly and not intuitive,’” he recalls. “I thought I could figure it out because, I mean, I had a Ph.D. The challenge of going to college should not be navigating our bureaucracy.”

During his seven-year presidential tenure at Weber State, Mortensen said one of his guiding principles is answering the question, “Are we the problem?” He’s used the feedback he’s received to advocate for more student-focused systems and processes, from scholarships and financial aid to parking.

“[People] are used to Amazon just putting up the things it thinks you want and being able to click twice. Why can’t registration be that easy?” Mortensen exhorts. “If you’re a student who’s working or trying to manage childcare and you have to budget an extra hour to park, that could be the difference, or not, in you staying in school. So, thinking about how to streamline everything related to the student experience, even parking, is important.”

That holistic view is one of the many reasons Mortensen has a track record of success in higher education. Highlights of his WSU tenure include unprecedented enrollment growth, initiating the first accelerated bachelor’s degree program in the public school system, and, in conjunction with the Utah Legislature and Larry H. and Gail Miller Family Foundation, launching the Miller Advanced Research and Solutions (MARS) Center.

Camille says one of her father’s favorite sayings was “the cream always rises to the top.” And though she admits some personal bias, she says that’s certainly been true with Brad.

“He knows what he doesn’t know. He’s super collaborative and knows that a rising tide lifts all boats,” she says. “He finds a way to surround himself with smart people and good people to fill in the gaps where he sees himself maybe coming up short.”

COMING HOME

Less than an hour before being named Weber State University president in December 2018, Mortensen didn’t yet know if the job was his. He and Camille were parked behind the LDS Institute building adjacent to the Ogden campus awaiting word, and approximately 52 minutes prior to the 5:45 p.m. announcement, that word finally came.

This time around, Mortensen received the good news with a little more breathing room before the announcement — though not much. He says he was notified of his selection around 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 29, with Utah State’s press conference scheduled for 10 a.m. the following morning.

“I think we’re both overwhelmed with the welcome and how much it means to people,” Camille exclaims. “Because for us, it’s kind of like a given, of course we’d want to come back. Logan is such a special place filled with special people. Utah State is not only a great university, but it meant so much to us. It’s where Brad figured out what he wanted to do with life. It was a catapult to the rest of our life. For us, it’s like, yeah, of course, it’s a given that’s what we want to do. But to see how much it means to others and the community [is special.]”

For Mortensen, he’s looking forward to the challenge and is excited to bring some stability to his alma mater. It’s been a turbulent 36 months in Logan with two presidential searches, administrative turnover, college restructuring and funding cuts, and a handful of lawsuits.

“I really am hopeful,” he says, “that being able to come as someone who has experience as a president — granted at an institution with a different mission — but someone who knows a lot of the policymakers and the issues, someone who is an Aggie, went to school here, and has a deep appreciation and love for this place, can help to quell some of that turbulence and focus on positioning the university for a bright future.