Bill Chaves is the new athletic director at the University of North Dakota.

Chaves has been the athletic director at Eastern Washington since 2007, where he was a two-time winner of national Athletic Director of the Year honors. Under his tenure, the school's football team won five conference titles and one national championship.

The 51-year-old Chaves will oversee 17 NCAA Division I athletic programs at UND, which currently competes in the Big Sky Conference and National Collegiate Hockey Conference.

Chaves replaces Brian Faison, who retired Dec. 31 after leading the athletic department for nearly a decade.

Other finalists were University of Texas at San Antonio deputy athletic director Kellie Elliott, Western Michigan senior associate athletic director M. Montgomery Porter III, and UND associate athletic director Michael Mannausau.