Ryan Kehr ‘18 and his sister (Julia Kehr ’26) are the seventh and eighth members of their family to attend Syracuse University. He knew from an early age that he wanted to attend the home of the Orange, but he didn’t quite know what he wanted to study. Nurturing a passion for sports since he was a little boy, he was always the guy going on about sports trivia, players, and statistics to anyone willing to listen. A multi-sport athlete in high school, Kehr considered going down the sports management track. But, as is supposed to happen at college, things changed when he got there.
Momentum swings are a big deal in sports. They are often responsible for, or at least indicative of, a major turning point in a game – when things once favoring one outcome are suddenly flung in another direction. Kehr experienced a personal momentum swing when he attended his first class at the iSchool. Introduction to Information Technology (IST 195) grabbed his attention and never let it go, and like that a new career trajectory was born.
Kehr’s professor for this first class, Jeff Rubin, also happened to be the founder of SIDEARM Sports – a company which has carved out its position as the preeminent driver behind digital fan engagement for most major college athletic programs across the country. Soon after starting down the path of an IST education, Kehr pursued a position working for SIDEARM as a Client Support Specialist. By the time he graduated he was managing the Student Team of the Streaming department as the Streaming Media Manager for the growing business.
His experiences with SIDEARM dovetailed nicely with the iSchool curriculum he was simultaneously working his way though. Immersing himself in the “startup culture”, and seeing more broadly the intersections of sports, technology, and business, allowed him to envision a new future for himself. Kehr was particularly interested in how ways of deploying data and technology could contribute immense value to the greater sports world. Even at that time, from within his lane of live-streaming, he saw the importance and potential of digital interfaces and engagement with fans of all types. He identified his niche and used his accumulating skillset in an effort to expand the reach of sports fandom, and to reignite interest from younger generations who were more tech savvy than many older sports fans. He credits his whole career to his time spent at SIDEARM, and the trust Rubin put in him to manage projects and grow professionally.
While studying in the iSchool, Kehr’s primary interests were project management, web design, and security. He ended up focusing more on the first two concentrations for his career, because he most enjoys the process of taking a brand new idea, building on it, and then managing the project all the way through its creation. He finds personal reward is a natural byproduct when designing to make users’ lives easier.
He wanted to contribute to a single company, and have opportunities to manage meaningful projects which he could continue to work on and optimize throughout their evolution. His experience with the SIDEARM culture confirmed what he thought he knew about the types of organizations and job roles he was hoping to find. His internships at Tiffany & Co., as Application Information Systems Intern, and for Major League Baseball (MLB), as Product Management Intern, further confirmed his calling.
Placing a high value on working between departments and possessing a wide understanding of how different projects fit into the bigger picture are some of the tenants he has taken from the iSchool. “I really wanted to go brand-focused with those internships,” he says, “just to show the range of what the iSchool teaches is limitless. I could take those base sets of skills that I learned, whether it was communications, problem solving, technical troubleshooting, and teamwork from all of the projects we do at the iSchool, and put it towards different verticals. Working in high fashion is completely different from working in sports, but I’m doing the same exact thing, just for a different type of industry. I was using the same skills for Tiffany & Co. as I was for MLB.”
For Kehr, it’s as personal as it is important for him to help lead the way to “non-traditional” careers through technology and information education. He wants current and prospective students of the iSchool to think big and broad about where their passions could take them, and trust that the way will appear. He continues to be a huge proponent of how the iSchool prepares students for possibilities limited only by their own imaginations.
Kehr’s longest detour from the sports world was directly after graduating with his bachelor’s in Information Management and Technology. He landed a job with Adswerve, an advertising agency, where he was working in a lot of technical roles, ultimately as Senior Technical Specialist. Towards the end of his time with Adswerve he began his Master’s of Technology Management Program at Columbia University, which he finished in 2022.
As one of the top tier professional sports organizations in the world, the National Football League (NFL) draws a lot of attention from job hunters who want to be closer to the action and might be more superfans than they are super workers. So when the NFL came looking, after getting his name from a former colleague at MLB, they made it clear that they were searching for an individual who could balance an appreciation for the splendor and excitement of the league, within the needs and rigors of a serious business environment. Kehr was well prepared for this opportunity, and so, he was back in sports.
As a Product Manager, he manages the Electronic Medical Records Platform (EMR) for the NFL. This is the digital platform which enables all 32 teams and their medical personnel to input, store, share and report on all of the medical data for every player in the NFL. For the last three years Kehr has been helping to build a brand new EMR to be used across the league. This enormous, complicated, and extremely important project helps ensure the health and safety of the players. A lot of what he has been focused on is tailoring and optimizing existing EMR models for better applications in sports. With health and medical information on the line, more public scrutiny regarding player safety than ever, and the teams’ requirements for flawless real-time execution of the EMR software, the stakes are high for the group behind the scenes. Making a better platform which frees the medical professionals to focus more on care is the main goal of Kehr and his team because, in sports, the best ability- is availability.
Looking back on his path to a dream job, Kehr distills down his undergraduate experience like this, “the iSchool presents a lot of opportunities. It is up to the student to take advantage of those opportunities. You can coast along, and go to class, get good grades, and land a good job. But what I got out of it was that the iSchool really prepares you with the baseline set of skills; communication, problem solving, teamwork, and technical skills that you can take anywhere you want to go. You can take it as far as you want to take it, but you have to take the opportunities the iSchool is giving you with career fairs, alumni, road trips, [etc.]. It might be tough, it might be a long road, but I believe it ultimately leads to happiness, and spending time doing something you love to do.”