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Karen Lee Yoder named Cal Pac Athletic Director of the Year
Posted: Apr 30, 2026

Karen Lee Yoder named Cal Pac Athletic Director of the Year

VALLEJO, Calif. – Former Cal Maritime Director of Athletics and Physical Education Karen Lee Yoder is the California Pacific Conference's Athletic Director of the Year, as announced by Commissioner Don Ott on Thursday, April 30, as voted by the league's Directors Council.

Yoder ended her nearly six-year tenure at Cal Maritime in March when she became Solano College's Athletic Director following the conclusion of the Cal Pac Men's and Women's Basketball Championships, postseason tournaments hosted by the Keelhaulers for the second time during her tenure.

In addition to representing the Intercollegiate Athletics Department as a member of the President's Cabinet, Yoder served as a CSU Title IX Hearing Advisor and held a position on the NAIA's National Administrative Council for the Championship Committee.

Yoder added four new sports — women's golf. women's rugby, men's and women's track — while on campus, increasing the total number of intercollegiate athletics programs under her leadership to 18 during her tenure at the helm of Athletics.

With a focus on creating the best possible undergraduate experience that provided the ideal combination of world-class academic programs, first-class athletics opportunities and personal growth, Yoder also founded the school's Athletics Hall of Fame and created the Athletics Awards Event — another first at Cal Maritime that took place prior to finals week each term, celebrating the academic excellence and athletic accomplishments earned by teams that competed during respective seasons.

In each of her years as a Keelhauler, Athletics earned Champions of Character Gold Star Status, the highest level of recognition bestowed by the NAIA thanks to five-consecutive perfect scorecards — one of only three athletic departments in the nation to accomplish this feat.

The NAIA Champions of Character program is an educational outreach initiative that emphasizes the tenets of character and integrity, not only for college students, but for younger students, coaches and parents in their communities.

Institutions are measured on a demonstrated commitment to Champions of Character and earn points in character training, conduct in competition, academic focus, character recognition and character promotion. Schools earn points based on exceptional student-athlete grade point averages combined with minimal to no ejections during competition throughout the course of the academic year.

Champions of Character, a program that addresses character issues more comprehensively than any other national program, is designed to instill an understanding of character values in sport and provides practical tools for student-athletes, coaches and parents to use in modeling exemplary character traits.

(The NAIA will announce its 2025-26 Champions of Character award recipients in September.)

Other department highlights that occurred throughout Yoder's tenure include:

  • Cal Maritime's sailing team became the only collegiate squad to compete against a field of professional crews in the Transpacific Yacht Race, a biannual race (and one of the most prestigious offshore competitions in the world) from Southern California to Honolulu, a competition that featured the Keelhaulers in 2023 and 2025
  • The school's inaugural youth summer camps: A department-led all-sports youth camp turned into a partnership with Nike and its Youth Camp program
  • A partnership between Cal Maritime Athletic Training, Head Athletic Trainer Jeff Ward and the JED Foundation yielded a program to prevent suicide and strengthen student-athletes' mental health through student-athlete-centered workshops
  • A dedicated strength and conditioning coach, valuable mental health and sports performance support resources were provided to student-athletes for the first time in school history
  • With students and student-athletes facing an increase in mental wellbeing issues, a lack of confidence and self-worth, difficult understanding identity, burnout and exhaustion, increasing performance pressure, trouble navigating relationships and social dynamics, Cal Maritime teamed with UnlimitMe and its series of workshops to help student-athletes learn, build and strengthen the skills needed to unlock one's educational, athletic and personal potential
  • The institution's inaugural Give Day, a fundraising event that raised over $26,0000 for athletic programs, scholarships and operating budgets
  • A brand-new recreation and intramural program, created post-COVID, that offered free weight training, cardio, core and mobility, spin, boxing and aquatic classes in addition to intramural softball, pickleball, crew, sailing, flag football, dodgeball, basketball, volleyball and futsol intramural opportunities to students
  • Open lap swimming to Vallejo residents and members of surrounding communities as a revenue-generating opportunity for the campus
  • Athletics-specific diversity, equity and inclusion training for administrators, coaches and staff through a partnership with Return On Inclusion
  • Cal Maritime served as host for the Cal Pac Student-Athletes Summit for the first time in school history