In his 29th year full-time with the University of Arkansas, Trainor is the chief public relations officer for Vice Chancellor and Director of Athletics Hunter Yurachek and Razorback Athletics.
As a member of Yurachek’s leadership cabinet and senior staff, Trainor is also in charge of the department’s engagement with former student-athletes in all sports, including the A Club. Trainor coordinates the department’s executive and crisis management communications, is the department’s FOIA coordinator, and is a department liaison with the Razorback Foundation, the University of Arkansas Sports Hall of Honor, University Relations, the National Football Foundation, the Arkansas Sports and Southwest Conference Halls of Fame. He is also entering his 14th year as the sports administrator for Razorback Baseball and his second year as the sports administrator for Razorback Volleyball.
Trainor was a nearly 20-year media relations veteran at his alma mater before assuming his current role. During his tenure in that position, Arkansas boasted nine All-Americans, including 2006 and 2007 Doak Walker Award winner and Heisman Trophy runner-up Darren McFadden, 2007 Rimington Trophy winner Jonathan Luigs and 2003 Outland Trophy and Lombardi Award finalist Shawn Andrews.
As associate SID, Trainor worked closely with football and served as the primary contact for the 2000 SEC Tournament champion Arkansas basketball squad. He also served as the color analyst on the Razorback Baseball Radio Network for five years.
A university graduate in journalism in 1994, he earned his master’s at Arkansas in 2005.
Trainor serves as the first vice president of the College Sports Communicators (formerly CoSIDA) and is president of the Northwest Arkansas Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA). He also serves on the board of directors for the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame, the Southwest Conference Hall of Fame, the Brandon Burlsworth Foundation and is an ex-officio board member of the Football Writers Association of America (FWAA).
He also serves as a communications consultant for the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC). In addition, he is a member of the U.S. Basketball Writers Association of America (USBWAA) and the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association (NCBWA).
In 2013, he was honored nationally by PR Daily for “Best in Crisis Management.” He has also been recognized multiple times by the Northwest Arkansas chapter of PRSA for the Razorback Athletics Annual Report. He has also served as an adjunct professor in Sports Public Relations in the university’s College of Education and Health Professions.
Trainor has been selected to serve at some of the most prestigious sporting events in the country. He has worked as the primary team media relations liaison to one of the competing teams in each of the first eight College Football Playoff National Championship games. For more than a decade, Trainor has been the press conference moderator for the nationally televised SEC Football Media Days. He has also been selected to serve as the press conference moderator at the National Football Foundation College Football Hall of Fame induction weekend, numerous SEC Football Championship Games and the SEC Women’s Basketball Tournament. Trainor has been a member of the media relations team for more than 25 Cotton Bowls and has worked numerous Master’s Tournaments for CBS Sports.
Trainor and his wife, the former Ruth Whitehead, are the parents of two daughters, Emma and Ellie. His brother, Kendall, a UA Sports Hall of Honor inductee, was a consensus first-team All-American at placekicker for the Razorback football team and a three-time letterman for the Razorback baseball team.
