Noah Gustkey – University of Pennsylvania

It started with a dead mouse.

Not a metaphor—an actual mouse, the kind that sends facilities staff scrambling. When Noah Gustkey arrived at the University of Pennsylvania as an intern more than two decades ago, that was part of the job description: whatever needed doing, you did it. The glamour could wait.

“When I first started, I was pulling mice,” he says, laughing at the memory.

Today, Gustkey is Associate Athletic Director and Senior Director of Facilities at Penn, overseeing one of the Ivy League’s largest and most complex athletics footprints—33 varsity sports, 25 buildings, and a capital project portfolio that would make many a Power Four program take notice. The mouse-pulling days are behind him. But the work ethic that defined them never left.

Gustkey didn’t set out to work in college athletics. He graduated from Bucknell University with a degree in business administration and accounting, then went to work in finance—Merrill Lynch, desk job, cubicle. It wasn’t long before he recognized what was missing.

“I was in a cubicle every day,” he recalls. “I needed something more.”

That restlessness led him to Temple University, where he earned a master’s degree in sport and recreation administration. Then came the Penn Relays—not as a spectator, but as a volunteer. That one decision opened a door. An internship followed. Nine months became a year, became five, became 25.

“I got my foot in the door by volunteering at the Penn Relays,” Gustkey says. “I thought I’d work here for nine months. Twenty-five years later, here I am.”

The University of Pennsylvania’s Division of Recreation and Intercollegiate Athletics (DRIA) supports 33 varsity sports, club teams, a robust intramural program, and general recreation programming for Penn’s student population. As Senior Director of Facilities, Gustkey serves as the primary liaison between athletics and the University’s Facilities and Real Estate Services (FRES), while maintaining daily oversight of all venues and equipment operations across a footprint that includes 10 outdoor facilities and 15 indoor spaces.

Balancing history & progress

The age of Penn’s campus is both a point of pride and a practical challenge. Many of the university’s athletics venues carry decades—sometimes more than a century—of history in their walls. Gustkey’s job is to honor that legacy while keeping pace with the demands of a modern athletics program.

“Because of the age of the Ivy League and Penn, we have a lot of cool buildings,” he says. “But you have to modernize them and respect the history. That takes a lot of thought and input.”

That philosophy guides projects like the Franklin Field plaza renovation and upgrades to the Palestra, one of college basketball’s most storied arenas. Gustkey and his team have carefully improved the seating, sound system, and video boards at the Palestra without sacrificing an ounce of its character. More recently, attention has turned to Weightman Hall, which sits adjacent to Franklin Field. Plans are underway to convert part of the structure into a new wrestling facility, complete with dedicated locker room space—another example of coaxing modern purpose from a historic building.

Among the most instructive projects in Gustkey’s tenure was one that drew very little fanfare: a four -year concrete restoration of Franklin Field, Penn’s storied football stadium and home to the Penn Relays, the largest event on the athletics calendar. The work began after an incident during the Relays revealed structural concerns that could not be ignored.

“We realized we had to redo the concrete around the entire stadium,” Gustkey says. “There was a lot of debate at the time—do we need to spend this type of money? Do we need a stadium of that size?”

The questions were legitimate. But so was the answer. The project moved forward, and Franklin Field remains a functioning, structurally sound venue. It wasn’t a headline-grabbing renovation. It was the kind of stewardship that keeps a program stable for the long term.

Navigating resources & priorities

The arms race in college athletics is real, but it looks different in the Ivy League. Penn doesn’t have access to Power Four television contracts or the ticket revenue that fuels major conference programs. Resources are allocated carefully, and Gustkey is acutely aware of the math.

“We have 33 teams, 10 outdoor facilities, 15 indoor,” he says. “There is constant thought about limited resources—you have to pick, choose, and prioritize.”

That constraint sharpens decision-making. Capital projects require clear justification, donor coordination, and precise institutional alignment. Gustkey spends roughly 75 percent of his time on capital work—feasibility analysis, budgeting, coordinating with architects, managing construction timelines—and brings an accountant’s discipline to every phase. His background in finance isn’t incidental; it’s infrastructure. Notable recent projects include the state-of-the-art Ott Center for Track and Field, the renovation of the Coulson Family Training Complex at Franklin Field, updates to the Burk-Bergmann Boathouse, Sheerr Pool, Penn Squash Center, T House Nutrition Facility, Tommy Lasorda Field at Meiklejohn Stadium, and the Silverstein Holistic Wellness and Concussion Center. Each came with its own set of tradeoffs and timelines. Each required Gustkey to serve simultaneously as advocate, budget manager, and institutional translator, ensuring projects were executed on time and within scope.

The people at the center of it all

For all the concrete and construction drawings, what keeps Gustkey at Penn isn’t the buildings—it’s what happens inside them. He talks about “reveals,” those moments when a newly renovated locker room or training facility is unveiled to student-athletes for the first time. The reactions stay with him.

“Transforming their spaces, doing the reveals, and seeing the smiles on their faces—that is the most rewarding part of the job,” he says.

Nearly 1,000 student-athletes pass through Penn’s facilities each year. Gustkey notices them. He interacts with them. He still finds it genuinely meaningful.

The same spirit carries into how he approaches the next generation. Penn recently launched the Quaker Fellow program, a paid 10-month internship designed to give aspiring athletics administrators real, substantive experience—project meetings, consistent weekly hours, and direct exposure to the operational realities of a Division I program. Several fellows have already secured positions at other institutions, and Gustkey views pipeline-building as an extension of his broader mission within the department.

He often hears from students who want to know how he got to where he is. His answer is always the same: get in the door, work hard, and stay curious.

“I have been here 25 years,” he says, “and I’m still learning.”

At a university where some of the sharpest minds in the world walk the same halls as its student-athletes, that openness to growth isn’t a cliché—it’s the guiding philosophy of someone who turned a nine-month internship into a quarter century of purpose-driven work, and who still wakes up every morning looking forward to what the day might bring.