Longtime intercollegiate athletics administrator Bob Heller is in his first year as the Senior Associate Athletic Director for Resouce Development after joining the department as the Director of Corporate Partnerships in November 2018.

Heller, served in a similar position for six years at Central Michigan University prior to arriving in Cleveland and senior associate athletics director at Kent State previously. He is primarily responsible for securing corporate partnerships in support of the Vikings 18 sport programs.

At Central Michigan, Heller secured lead gifts and naming opportunities for the new opened Events Center and baseball’s Performance Development Center. Prior to his fund raising responsibilities at Central Michigan, Bob spent 11 years at Kent State University, eventually serving as senior associate athletics director being directly involved with the strategic planning of the department's compliance, finance, facilities, marketing, personnel, diversity efforts, equity and fund-raising initiatives. He had immediate sport oversight of the baseball men’s and women’s cross country and track and field, field hockey, women’s soccer, softball, and provided leadership assistance with the men's basketball programs, having responsibility for each program's personnel evaluation, contract, budget, academic progress, scheduling and daily operations.

Heller was also an ex officio member of the department's national athletics development council and assisted the development staff with the cultivation and solicitation of endowed scholarships and other aid awards. Heller joined the Kent State staff in 1999 as the assistant athletic director for compliance, a position he held for two years before being promoted to associate athletics director in 2000 and eventually senior associate athletics director in 2005.

A former student-athlete, teacher and coach, Heller began his administrative career as a graduate assistant at East Stroudsburg University in 1989. He served at Lenoir-Rhyne College as its coordinator of special events, director of intramurals and compliance coordinator from 1990-95, then spent four years as assistant to the athletic director at Slippery Rock University, overseeing both compliance and facilities and game & event management from 1995-99.

Previous to working as an administrator in athletics, Heller spent six years (1984-90) as the head men's cross country and assistant men's track and field coach at Kutztown University, where he coached six all-Americans and eighteen Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference place finishers. In 1988 he was recognized as the NCAA East Regional Cross Country "Coach of the Year" by the NCAA Division II Coaches Association after leading his squad to the national championships for the first time in the program's history. During that time he was also a special education teacher at Northeast Middle School in Reading, Pa.

Heller earned a Bachelor of Science degree in special education from Kutztown State College in 1981 and completed his Master of Education degree in health and physical education, with a concentration in sports administration, from East Stroudsburg University in 2002.

Bob has three children - a daughter, Mary Beth, who is married to son-in-law Greg Lambach, two grandsons, Luke and Logan. Two sons, Bobby, who is married to daughter-in-law Tina, and a granddaughter Ayla; and Bob's youngest son Michael.