Employees at the Dedman Center for Lifetime Sports have been putting in extra effort – and Executive Director of Recreational Sports Judith Banes has noticed.

Banes announced the promotion of two employees, Ed Kranz and David Chambers, to the position of assistant director.

“The way advancement happens in our department is years of service, involvement in the division, involvement on campus and budgetary experience,” said Banes. “Their promotions are for taking on extra responsibilities. “Kranz has been at SMU since 1995 when he was hired to work at the old Dedman Gym.

“When I was first hired, my responsibility was handing out basketballs, opening the facility and checking ID cards,” said Kranz.

“Throughout the years, programs developed, things changed and I took on more responsibilities,” he said.

Kranz had been working in retail and had experience as a high school soccer coach when his wife brought home a brochure from Human Resources about a job opening at SMU. Kranz called accepting the job “one of the best moves I’ve made in my life.” Since the Dedman Center for Lifetime Sports opened last year, Kranz has seen his workload increase. After the old gym manager resigned, SMU hired two new assistant managers to help organize staff. Kranz and the assistant managers are responsible for all hiring and staff training.

Kranz himself oversees the facilities, repairing equipment when necessary and organizing reservations.

Kranz called this last part the biggest challenge of his job.

“Students are paying for the facilities through tuition, so we want them to get it first,” he said. “It’s a balancing act of tyring to meet the needs of students and community groups” since the Center is in such high demand, he said.

Chambers, who is in charge of the Outdoor Adventure program, has been at SMU since 2004.

When he arrived, “we didn’t have outdoor adventure … so he’s developed his program from the ground up,” said Banes.

Chambers rents outdoor equipment, organizes outdoor programming and oversees activities involving the climbing wall.

The program ranges “from sea kayaking to water rafting to mountaineering – anything people have an interest in,” Chambers said.

The program will be offering its first international trip this winter to Costa Rica, but “I’d love to see us going to places like Canada, Alaska or New Zealand,” said Chambers.

According to Banes, Chambers had the climbing wall up and running as soon as the Center opened.

He’s also worked with Residence Life and done challenge courses within the Rec Sports division and other departments and has filled to capacity every outdoor trip so far.

And Chambers is hoping his department only gets bigger, offering more workshops and training for outdoor skills “from cooking with a Dutch oven to fly-fishing.”

Though the promotion will add some administrative responsibilities, Chambers said that “Overall my job will still be the same – that’s to make the program the best program we can make it and to meet the desires of people on campus.”

Both employees, though, credit their fellow staff members for their successes. “I just can’t emphasize how much pride and repect I have for folks who work for me,” said Chambers. “They take us out there with a lot of responsibility on their shoulders and they do it for the fun of it. It’s not because they get paid a lot of money, it’s the fact that they love it.”

Kranz expressed his gratitude to Banes.

“It’s nice to have someone who goes the extra mile” to make sure employees are recognized, he said.