Bruce Van De Velde, senior associate athletic director at the University of Oklahoma, will become the next ISU athletic director, ISU officials announced Wednesday.

Van De Velde spoke at press conference Wednesday in the Hunziker Auditorium of the Jacobson Athletic Building. Several coaches, players and members of the athletic director search committee were in attendance.

Van De Velde will be succeeding Gene Smith, who had been the ISU athletic director since July 1993. Smith left Iowa State to become the athletic director at Arizona State University in Tempe, Ariz.

“For me, it is a professional milestone — a destination,” Van De Velde said. “[It’s] something that I have worked hard and long for, for many, many years.”

Van De Velde received his bachelor’s degree in physical education in 1981 from Iowa State.

He has held many jobs at various colleges, including Utah State, where he served as athletic director.

He has also spent time at the University of Missouri at Columbia, Kansas State, Tulane University and the University of Iowa.

“I am very excited and happy and look forward to working with many of the coaches, the student-athletes and the staff members,” Van De Velde said.

Van De Velde said he hopes to take over his new position by Nov. 15, and then he will discuss topics such as an extension to ISU head football coach Dan McCarney’s contract.

—Jeremy Gustafson