It’s difficult not to have a sense of deja vu regarding the impending career move of golf administrator Dustin Jensen.

Jensen, the CGA’s highly regarded and well-liked managing director of operations, recently accepted a job as associate dean of student engagement at his alma mater, the University of Jamestown in his hometown of Jamestown, North Dakota.

If that strikes some in the Colorado golf community as vaguely familiar, there’s good reason. In 2011, after spending 10 years working for the CGA (including an internship), Jensen departed for a position at the University of Jamestown. There, he coached the Jimmies men’s and women’s golf teams and served as director of alumni relations and as executive director of the Jimmie Booster Club. (Another current CGA staffer, manager of junior competitions Ashley Barnhart, played golf for Jensen at Jamestown.)

But Jensen returned to the CGA at the beginning of 2015, coincidentally after another staffer, Briena Goldsmith, returned to North Dakota after an eight-year run at the CGA.

And now, Jensen is going home again — again. His final official day of work at the CGA is Dec. 22, then he’ll depart for North Dakota late this month and start his job at Jamestown at the beginning of next year.

“A number of things came together professionally and personally,” Jensen said when asked about his impending exit. “A lot of things aligned.”

The personal part of the equation was the death of Jensen’s younger brother, Casey, in Jamestown in August, and related family matters. The professional part was the high-level opening at the University of Jamestown, which is expected to lead to a dean of students position when Jensen receives a Masters degree, probably in 2-3 years.

According to the university, Jensen in his new role “will be responsible for overseeing and assisting in the development of co-curricular programs, activities and events designed to enhance students’ experiences.”

“Dustin’s leadership and passion for students will be a tremendous asset as we continue to build programs of distinction for future Jimmies,” University of Jamestown president-elect Dr. Polly Peterson said in announcing Jensen’s return to the school.

While Jensen is looking forward to his new job, the situation is certainly bittersweet for him.

“It’s hard to leave the CGA,” said the 37-year-old. “I’ve grown up here (professionally). I grew up in Jamestown, but the other half of my life has been with the CGA. Leaving is tough. The circumstances (with his family) are tough too. It’s really, really hard to go. I’m excited to get back and be around family. But I’ve got my Jamestown family and my CGA family.”

Jensen, who was born in Jamestown, has only lived in North Dakota and Colorado, and will obviously continue in that vein for the foreseeable future.

As managing director of operations, Jensen had a hand in many of the CGA’s programs and initiatives and its running of championships. Given all that, and Jensen’s previous role as director of youth programs, it’s fair to say he’s well known in the Colorado golf community. And very popular too.

“He’s a very selfless person. That’s what I’m going to miss more than anything,” said CGA executive director Ed Mate, who first hired Jensen for the full-time staff in 2002. “We were driving to a meeting once and saw a car on the side of the road. He thought for sure it was one of our coworkers (with vehicle trouble). So we pulled over. I’m thinking, ‘We’re going to be late (to the meeting).’ But he wanted to check, and everything was all right. Dustin is one of the most selfless people I’ve ever known, and you can’t replace that, that spirit of service. He’ll help people out, stop and talk to people on the course. He has people skills you can’t teach.”

Not surprisingly, given his former position as director of youth programs for the CGA, the thing Jensen takes most pride in in his most recent stint with the association is the key role he played in getting the Junior Golf Alliance of Colorado up and running, then up to full speed, over the last few years. Jensen and Keith Soriano — the former Colorado PGA assistant executive director who became a Colorado-based PGA of America career consultant — spearheaded the JGAC’s organizational efforts as it was being rolled out.

“I’d almost say it’s more difficult (this time leaving the CGA),” Jensen said. “I moved into a position where I had a hand in anything and everything — and loved it. There’s the integration with the CWGA (where the CGA and CWGA are joining forces) and the Junior Golf Alliance. It’ll be hard to see all that (keep evolving) from afar, but also exciting. The footprint of the CGA in 2011 and now is so much different.

“I’m really excited to see where the Junior Golf Alliance goes. Multiple entities (the CGA, Colorado PGA and CWGA) came together and put kids first. That was the biggest thing I’ve been part of (professionally). The Alliance was good in year 1 (2016). It was really good in year 2 (2017). It’s going to grow exponentially from here on. Like Ed has said, junior golf in Colorado is a North Star for other associations. We get emails from other associations asking how we’ve done it.”

(Jensen is pictured at left with the 2017 boys Junior America’s Cup team.)

Also among Jensen’s big-picture duties were building out future-year championship schedules so as to avoid major conflicts for players, and to serve as a liaison between the CGA and PGA professionals and general managers.

“More than anything, I’m happy for him personally and the (University of Jamestown) job is perfect for him,” Mate said of Jensen. “That’s where his heart is — working with kids (and young adults). That’s where he’s in his element.

“What he brought more than anything (to Colorado golf) is heart — the human side. He’s changed our culture as an organization in a good way. He’s made us strive to be better people. And we’ll try to carry that forward.”

Mate said there are no plans to make a new hire nor to immediately name a new managing director of operations. For the time being, Jensen’s duties will be handled by the current CGA staff, which is growing by several members with the addition of CWGA staffers.

“Given the timing (with the CGA and CWGA becoming one organization), we have a unique opportunity to redistribute the work,” Mate said. “With the coming together of two staffs, we have a young staff. With this and Gerry (Brown, a longtime CGA staffer and the association’s director of handicapping and course rating) retiring at the end of next year, there’s a lot of change coming. Bringing in another body doesn’t make sense. I’d like to let things evolve organically to a certain extent.”
 

Following in the footsteps of Briena Goldsmith (who has since returned to North Dakota) and Dustin Jensen (who has had two stints with the CGA sandwiched around more than three years back in North Dakota), Ashley Barnhart is the latest addition to the CGA staff from N.D.

After two straight summers serving as an intern for the association — and plenty of part-time work over this past fall, winter and spring — Barnhart went full-time on May 9, two days after graduating from the University of Jamestown (N.D.). And, as was the case last summer during her internship, she’ll be devoted to junior tournaments, now as the manager of junior competitions.

That’s right up Barnhart’s alley in several respects as she was a former high school and college golfer in North Dakota, she just received her B.A. degree in Education, and she loves working with kids.

“I always thought that I wanted to teach in a classroom, but with my internship I learned that I don’t have to be in a conventional classroom to be an educator,” Barnhart said recently. “Being down here, I was like, ‘Oh there are other ways I can connect with kids and connect with juniors that don’t require me to teach in a conventional classroom.’

“I hit the point of realization where I was like, ‘Why can’t every golf course in the state be my classroom?’ and ‘Why can’t every junior program be my classroom?’ You have the same ability to influence kids. So that’s the part of this job that I’m really excited about — being able to influence kids in a way that I never knew was possible until my internship.”

In her new role, Barnhart will be working extensively alongside the Colorado PGA — and her counterpart there, Holly Champion, the junior golf director at the CPGA — in running events that fall under the umbrella of the new Junior Golf Alliance of Colorado that the CGA and the Section co-founded.

And given that JGAC is overseeing more than 80 events in 2016, Barnhart, Champion and company figure to be plenty busy this golf season.

“Starting Tuesday (May 31), we’ve got tournaments (just about) every day until August,” Barnhart noted. “It’s going to be crazy. It’s going to be a lot of being on the course, administering the tournaments, as well as doing the communication beforehand — connecting with golf courses, players, processing registrations, all of that.”

Barnhart believes the collaboration with the Colorado PGA for the JGAC will benefit junior players.

“The way I like to sum it up is you take two things that are already good and you put them together and you make something that’s great,” she said. “You essentially double your staff, you double your experience. And the experiences that they (the Colorado PGA) have are very different than the experiences we have. So when we come together and work together, it’s going to be something that’s great. I don’t think our roles are going to change very much necessarily. It’s just a matter of figuring out who is best at what and who has the expertise in what areas so we can make it the best it can be.”

Though Barnhart has played golf since she was about 5 years old, and competitive golf since the eighth grade, she said there was nothing like what the JGAC is doing in Colorado when she was growing up in North Dakota.

“Junior golf does not exist like this in North Dakota,” she said. “So coming down here that first summer, it was like, ‘This is pretty neat.’ This is what I love. I love waking up, seeing the smiling faces on the kids in the morning, helping them get around the golf course, and closing it out at the end of the day. It’s great. I love it. It’s a cool classroom.

“I love being around the kids. The energy that they have is so different than anything that you (experience).”

Though Barnhart self-deprecatingly says “I’ve got kids out here in all age divisions who could beat me on any given day,” during her time as a competive golfer, she helped her Kenmare High School team claim the 2010 “B” state title in her sophomore year. Then last year, as a junior at Jamestown and while Jensen was coaching both the women’s and men’s teams, the Jimmies qualified for the Women’s NAIA National Championships for the first time.

Though Barnhart didn’t play her final semester of college golf this spring as she was student teaching a K-1 combination class in Aurora, she was named an NAIA Women’s Golf Scholar-Athlete for the second straight year.

Notably, Barnhart got her foot in the door for a full-time position at the CGA when then-director of junior competitions Eric Wilkinson moved to the upper Midwest — Minneapolis specifically — in February 2015. Barnhart said Jensen, now the CGA’s managing director of operations, told her about the opening and she jumped at the opportunity, which turned into a full staff job straight out of college.

“I’ve kind of always felt like a full-time staff person, but knowing that I have that responsibility and knowing that I have the opportunity to give kids the same opportunity to play golf I’ve had is really cool,” she said.
 

When it comes to the CGA staff, North Dakota giveth and North Dakota taketh away.

In the first decade of the new millennium, it giveth, with two North Dakotans, Dustin Jensen and Briena Goldsmith, moving to Colorado and becoming key, long-term members of the CGA staff.

But in the last four years, it’s taketh away, with both Jensen (2011) and Goldsmith (early this fall) moving back to North Dakota.

And at the beginning of 2015, it’s back in the “giveth” mode as Jensen will return to the CGA to become managing director of operations. Coincidentally, the person who he’s succeeding in that role is Goldsmith, who returned to North Dakota in October after an eight-year run at the CGA.

Jensen will be departing his job with his alma mater, the University of Jamestown, where he essentially has had four jobs: executive director of the booster club, director of alumni relations, and coaching both the men’s and women’s golf teams.

Jensen, 34, will be officially rejoining the CGA on Jan. 5, though he’ll coach the Jamestown golf teams during the spring portion of their schedules so as to not leave the programs in a lurch in mid-season.

“We’re thrilled to have Dustin ‘come home’ to the CGA,” said Ed Mate, executive director of the CGA during all of Jensen’s previous stint with the association (2001-11) and still now. “Frankly, he’s the perfect fit. He’s intimately familiar with the CGA and he’s spent the last four years adding tremendous skills to his tool kit.

“We did a thorough search (in filling Goldsmith’s position), and Dustin competed for the job like anyone else. He has a lot of experience, and he’s learned a lot in North Dakota.”

That will be reflected in his responsibilities in his new role as managing director of operations. He’ll oversee three key operations of the CGA: rules and competitions, junior competitions, and course rating and handicapping.

In other changes in titles and responsibilities, Erin Gangloff will become the CGA’s director of programs, handling programs and outreach efforts; and Ryan Smith will be director of development and communications.

Jensen’s previous stint with the CGA ended with a seven-year run as a popular director of youth programs.

“The CGA has been so important to me,” said Jensen, whose only years spent living outside of North Dakota have come during his time with the CGA. “This is the best move for (wife) Mary and I. Leaving home is the hard part, but I’m coming back to family. I thought I’d end up being either an athletic director or doing this type of stuff, and this is more where my heart is. This is the best fit, and it was the right time.”

Jensen first joined the CGA as an intern in 2001. The next year, Mate hired him full-time. During his seven years as director of youth programs, Jensen significantly increased the CGA’s junior outreach programs and fundraising efforts — especially with the opening of the CGA/CWGA-owned CommonGround Golf Course — as well as the number of junior tournaments. He also played the key role in the CGA hosting the 2011 Junior America’s Cup (left) at Hiwan Golf Club after the tournament was moved from Mexico due to safety concerns. The Colorado team posted its best finish ever in the JAC that year, placing third.

“It’s nice to be tied in with junior golf again, and I’ve worked with men’s championships before,” Jensen said. “The staff is such a good group; it’s like family. You miss it. It’s such a great place to be.”