Minnesota Thunder GM Djorn Buchholz Takes CEO Job with Austin Aztex

The Austin Aztex will announce today the hiring of Djorn Buchholz as Chief Executive Officer of the USL-1 franchise.

Buchholz, a 30-year-old Nebraska native, has been with the Minnesota Thunder for 6 years. He was hired as a sales and marketing manager and was promoted his second year to director of marketing. In his third year with the organization he was promoted to general manager.

Buchholz attended Hastings College in Nebraska and was a marketing major. He spent two years with the Indiana Blast before coming to the Thunder.

IMS had the chance to talk to Buchholz by phone.

IMS: You have to be very excited about this move for you personally and for being involved with an organization like Austin who are a newer USL club but have a great owner in Phil Rawlins and a guy with strong English soccer connections?

Buchholz:  I told Phil Rawlins that a goal of mine was in 5 years I’d like to be working for a team in Europe. Phil seemed to like that and he definitely has the connections to make that a reality if I do a good job in Austin. But I think what was most attractive for me was to take what I’ve learned over 8 years in the USL and bring it into a pretty young organization like Austin, who are doing great things already. Hopefully I’ll help them to improve on that.

IMS: Tell us a little bit about what you know about the Austin Aztex and how did this move come about?

Buchholz: Things happened pretty quickly. I would have to say that I wasn’t out there looking for a new team but I was approached by 2 different teams. We talked quite a bit over the course of a month and the offer came when I was in Colorado on a vacation. I made my decision and when I came back I let the Thunder know I would be leaving.

They’re a great organization and are doing a lot of great things. They just went on a tour of Europe and knocked off three pretty competitive teams while on that tour. Phil is really about developing players and bringing them to the next level. That’s very attractive to me because I really enjoy that part of the business.

They will also be moving into a new stadium which is closer to downtown, which is called House Park, and in Austin everything happens downtown. It’s near a University as well so there’s some pretty great things that will be happening with that.

They have a beautiful training facility and a fantastic coach and from what I understand they have a fantastic group of young hungry individuals who are eager to learn more and want to do their positions better. That’s a lot of what I plan on coming in to work on.

Phil has been very hands on in the first two years of the organization to create the vision and set it on its way. I think he is now at the point where he wants to focus more on big picture things and he needs someone to really come in and manage the day to day operation of things.

This is a new position because Phil had previously been doing all the duties. Do my duties as CEO also include basically what a general manger would do? Of course they do, but I also hope to be assisting Phil in some of those big picture ideas he will be working with.

IMS: You’ve been through some rough years with the Thunder but this past year had to have been particularly hard with the financial issues the team was having and working with a minimal staff with a lot of interns. How much did that influence your decision to move onto another club?

Buchholz: It was a challenging last year with the Thunder but I still think we did a lot of great things and believe the team will still do a lot of great things. I tried to take that out of the equation and I just thought that Austin is a great opportunity right now.

IMS: What was your worst moment with the Thunder?

Buchholz: You always want to be competitive, but we went though a couple of seasons where we really were just not that competitive. That would be the 2006 and 2007 seasons and that was frustrating. We really struggled. I’m under the belief that winning solves a lot of problems. If you’ve got a competitive team that is winning games it helps your sponsorships, it helps your ticket sales. It even helps when players have little problems – they don’t turn into big problems. When you are losing, it seems as if everything sort of escalates.

IMS: What was your best moment with the Thunder?

Buchholz: For me personally it was being promoted to GM at the age of 25. That was a goal I was hoping to reach at age 30 so that was pretty cool for me.

As for the organization I would have to say the 2005 US Open Cup run and making it all the way to the semifinals. That was just incredible! And even in 2004 the US Open Cup game against the San Jose Earthquakes at James Griffin Stadium. That was perhaps the most amazing sporting event I’ve ever been a part of. I just had goose bumps….Incredible!

I also think the LA Galaxy game with Beckham (at the Metrodome) was another high point. That was a pretty big event that we pulled off in a very short amount of time because he (Beckham) had been hurt and then we had to reschedule and relaunch it. So I was pretty proud of the organization and what we did to make that happen.

IMS: Do you have any closing comments for Thunder supporters or staff?

Buchholz: I really consider Minnesota my home and where I got my start. It’s really where I had my chance to grow in this business. I think that came down to the interaction I was able to have with the fans and the supporters. I got to know so many people on a personal level that I think that’s pretty cool. You don’t get that in a lot of sports organizations and that’s something I want to take to Austin as well.

The things we’ve done and partnered with the Dark Cloud supporters, whether it’s events or selling tickets at tailgates, all those things have been pretty easy because all those people made it easy. So a big thank you to all of the supporters.

I also want to say that the staff we’ve had here at Minnesota is about the hardest working staff that I can imagine ever having. From Trina (Kramer) to Angie (Blaker). The amount of hours those people put in made my job so much easier. You’re only as good as the people around you and I owe a big thank you to them as well.

I’ve also enjoyed working with Dean (Johnson) and Manny (Lagos). Dean brought a lot of things to the table that allowed the Thunder to grow as an organization and he allowed me to stay on as GM when he took over.

The coaches that we’ve had – what a great opportunity to work with a coaching legend like Buzz Lagos. As well, Amos (Magee) and Donny (Gramenz), they’re just fantastic people. Working with those people has been an absolute joy and I owe a lot to this organization.

Buchholz, will start his new position with the Aztex on November 11.

Note to to the Aztex organization: What might not have been on Buchholz’ resume is that he’s also a very good singer and has sung the National Anthem on a number of occasions for the team.