On July 25, 2007, Thorr D. Bjorn was appointed the 11th director of athletics in University of Rhode Island history.

He comes to Kingston after spending 15 years at his alma mater - the University of Massachusetts - in a variety of athletic administrative roles. At the time of his hire, Bjorn had entered his fourth year as the senior associate athletic director at UMass.

In his new position with URI, the 39-year-old Bjorn will oversee an athletics operation that has 22 intercollegiate sports. He will play critical roles in budgeting, fundraising and marketing for athletics, while serving Rhody's approximately 500 student-athletes.

In his previous role at UMass, Bjorn served as the day-to-day sport supervisor for football and ice hockey, while also overseeing the men's and women's lacrosse programs.

He directly supervised the UMass athletic marketing staff, corporate sales - including the UMass Radio Network, coaches shows and signage - and ticket operations. Bjorn also served as liaison between the athletic department and Global Spectrum - the management company for the William D. Mullins Center, home of UMass basketball and hockey.

Bjorn played an integral role in UMass' department-wide apparel deal with adidas, oversaw all aspects of the funding and installation of a multi-million dollar video scoreboard system in the Mullins Center, and helped to secure funding sources for a new artificial surface at Alumni Stadium - home of the nationally-ranked Minutemen football program.

From Sept. 2003-Feb. 2004, Bjorn was the interim athletic director at UMass. In that role, he oversaw all aspects of the department, including supervising a senior administrative staff of 10 associate and assistant athletic directors, as well as the head football, men's basketball, and men's ice hockey. During his tenure, he negotiated a contract extension with Don "Toots" Cahoon, head men's ice hockey coach, and was the athletic department liaison in a viability study on elevating to Division I-A (now "BCS") football status.

After a three-year stint as the director of regional sales and marketing for Resorts Sports Network in Portland, Maine, Bjorn returned to UMass in April of 2003 as the Associate AD/External Affairs. At RSN - a company which provides cable systems with programming at ski resorts - he was personally accountable for $1 million in television and web advertising revenue.

In his role as Associate AD, Bjorn was responsible for soliciting all radio and television advertising and corporate sponsorship dollars for the athletic department, Mullins Center, and UMass Magazine - a total exceeding $1 million dollars. Under his watch, annual sponsorship revenue increased by over 135 percent. Bjorn also directed the department's retail merchandise program, coordinated advertising campaigns and directed the ticket office. He also established "MinuteFan Park," an interactive fan experience at Alumni Stadium.

After graduating from UMass and spending six months as an intern in the business office at the University of Connecticut, he returned to his alma mater as assistant athletic director for tickets and game operations in December of 1990, a position he held until being promoted in 1996.

A three-year letterwinner for the Minutemen football program, he earned his bachelor's degree in sports management from UMass in 1990, following with a master's degree in higher education from his alma mater in 1995.

He met his wife Cyndy at UMass, and the couple has three daughters, twins Stephanie and Robyn, 10 and Rachael, 7.