Pete Sala, managing director of the Carrier Dome since 2005, has been named interim director of athletics, Kent Syverud announced in an email Wednesday.

Sala will take over for Daryl Gross, who had been director since 2005. Gross stepped down from the role Wednesday, and will now serve as vice president and special assistant to the chancellor. He will also be an adjunct professor in the David B. Falk College of Sport and Human Dynamics, where he will teach sport management.

Floyd Little, special assistant to the athletics director, will counsel Sala during his time as interim director, Syverud said in the email.

Sala is a graduate of Jamesville-DeWitt High School and completed a program in turf management at the University of Massachusetts. He has been at the Carrier Dome since 1982 when he began working as a production assistant. He worked his way up, taking jobs as production manager in 1988 and operations manager in 1991.

He served as assistant director of facilities operations for the Dome from 1991 until 2005. He was promoted to associate director of athletics for facilities in June 2005, and took over as managing director of the Dome in 2010.

In that role, Sala is responsible for all aspects of the day-to-day operations of the facility, including scheduling events, running the box office and overseeing necessary building maintenance, according to Cuse.com. In addition, Sala supervises a full-time staff of 35 people and a part-time staff of nearly 400 people that assist in Dome operations and facility changeovers.

Sala is also the construction manager for all athletics facility upgrades and new building projects, according to Cuse.com. That includes recent additions to the football weight room and the remodeling of Manley Field House into a multi-use indoor practice facility.

Sala did not respond to an email Wednesday afternoon.

Published on March 18, 2015 at 1:28 pm

Contact Brett: blsamuel@syr.edu | @Brett_Samuels27