Justin Assad joins the Dartmouth sailing staff for his first season after spending the last seven years as the head coach at the University of Vermont.

Assad was the head coach of Vermont sailing since 2003 and was named the New England Conference Coach of the Year in 2008. He coached two All-Americans and a pair of All-New England honorees. He also coached the 2010 Babineau Trophy recipient for New England Crew of the Year. During his time at Vermont he has also been a program director at the Nantucket Yacht Club. His duties included training and managing a staff that included instructors and coaches. Assad has been the scheduling coordinator for the New England Intercollegiate Sailing Association since 2006.

Prior to his coaching stint at Vermont, he was an assistant coach for the U.S. National Team of the United States Optimist Dinghy Association. He helped develop both advanced and novice sailors throughout the northeast region.

While with Team USA, Assad also had head coaching duties for the Rhode Island Optimist Team and the East Greenwich Yacht Club as a head racing coach. In Rhode Island, he trained the Ocean State’s top sailors in the 10-15 year old age bracket. For the Yacht Club, he tutored beginners and advanced double-handed racers in the 14-18 age group with the focus being preparation for collegiate competition. He started at the Yacht Club in 1999, building the optimist program from scratch as it was sponsored for the first time. While there, he coached the 2000 and 2001 NBYA Overall Optimist Champion.

Assad, a 2003 graduate of Columbia, coached Vermont to the Inter-Collegiate Sailing Association National Championship Final Regatta in two of the last three seasons with an eighth-place finish this past year at Wisconsin.

While at Columbia, Assad was a team captain as a senior and he helped take home the 2002-03 Ivy League Championship. In addition to his captains duties, he was the regatta chair during the first three seasons. The chair was responsible for the complete creation and management of the competition schedule. The Lions had one of the most competitive schedules for a club team in the Middle Atlantic Intercollegiate Sailing Association. He was the Undergraduate President of the MAISA in 2002-03 and was the North Representative from 2000-2002.