(The Daily Advertiser) – The University of Louisiana at Lafayette has a new athletic director, and he falls straight from the tree of Mike Alden.

UL president Joseph Savoie’s choice to replace Scott Farmer is Bryan Maggard, an associate athletic director for the past 21-plus years at the University of Missouri.

Alden, a special consultant to the screening committee that vetted candidates for the post at UL, served as Missouri’s athletic director from 1998 through 2015 – a 17-year span during which Maggard worked under his wing.

“The history and tradition of the University of Louisiana and Ragin’ Cajun athletics bodes very well,” Maggard said in an exclusive interview with the Daily Advertiser on Wednesday morning, “so people in our industry perceive this is as a very, very good job.

“So I am absolutely honored to be given this opportunity.”

A national search to replace Farmer culminated with the hiring of Maggard, who will be formally introduced by the Ragin’ Cajuns at a news conference scheduled for Wednesday afternoon.

Farmer was ousted last fall, and his reassignment to a faculty position was announced in November.

Maggard was hired by Missouri as a senior associate athletic director in June 1995, and was promoted to his most-recent position of executive associate athletic director in July 2012.

After earning a bachelor’s degree from Kansas State University in journalism and mass communication in 1989, he worked from 1990-93 as an academic counselor at Kansas State while also pursuing a master’s there in health and physical science.

He worked as assistant director for academic services at Florida State University from 1993-95 before moving on to Missouri, where in 2007 he also earned a doctorate degree in education, school and counseling psychology.

At Missouri, according personal biography on that univerity’s website, Maggard assisted in oversight of football, scheduling, facility design and construction, and administrative and personnel management.

He toiled in a vast array athletic departments areas including academic services, athletic dining, athletic performance, equipment operations, sport and counseling psychological services, sports medicine and student-athlete development.

Maggard additionally has experience in marketing and multi-media rights, both components that will be central to the workload of UL’s new athletic director.

Starting in October 2015, Alden also was hired as a consultant to oversee an independent sixth-month study of the Cajuns’ athletic department that ultimately recommended – among other matters – the pursuit of untapped revenue-generating marketing and multi-media opportunities.

Maggard, according to his Missouri bio, also “was very involved in assisting the (Tigers’) athletic department with its transition into the Southeastern Conference” and in 2012 he

began assisting with “the design and construction of $100 million in facility projects.”

UL currently is in the midst of its own $115 million-plus athletic facilities masterplan, which calls for the construction or renovation of several venues – some of which are complete, some of which are ongoing and some of which remain in the planning stages.

Maggard also has taught sport management courses at Missouri, has been a member of the university’s graduate faculty and has served on doctoral examination and dissertation committees.

He and wife Kerry are the parents of three children, Dalton, Aubrey, and Kaylin.

Maggard was selected from a pool of 100-plus applicants that eventually was whittled to seven chief candidates, and finally two who made on-campus visits last week.

Alden advised the screening committee, which interviewed the final seven candidates, as did Savoie and Alden.

Savoie made the final selection.