Richard Speas brings an extensive and diverse background in higher education and intercollegiate athletics to Minnesota West Community and Technical College. The Union, Iowa native comes to Minnesota West from Kansas Wesleyan University where he served as the Deputy Athletic Director. During his tenure, the Coyotes captured three consecutive commissioner’s cups, recognizing Kansas Wesleyan University as the best performing University in the KCAC. KWU also saw record enrollment and athletic fundraising success during his tenure.

 Speas’ resume in higher education includes coaching, athletic administration, associate director of admissions, and teaching. Speas also holds diverse experience as a coach and athletic administrator at the NCAA, NAIA, and NJCAA levels.

Serving at the NJCAA level, Speas guided several NJCAA athletic programs as Director of Athletics, including one of the premier juco programs in the nation at Blinn College in Texas. In addition to serving as the Director of Athletics at the NJCAA level, Speas has also served as an Athletic Director at Peru State College and Southern Virginia University.

In addition to athletic administration, Speas had significant success in coaching at the collegiate level. Serving as the head assistant baseball coach at William Penn University, the Statesmen teams were consistently in the national rankings and had a winning record against NCAA Division I teams. Speas has also served as head softball, head men’s and women’s cross-country and head men’s and women’s track and field coach, winning multiple coach of the year awards.

Richard is the father of six children. Richard and his wife, Espy reside in Iowa.