Burlingame Dragons reshape front office

Now the Dragons hope to take the next step — not only in solidifying the team in the community, but also building the relationship with the Earthquakes.

To that end, the Dragons announced Monday it has added two new members of to the front office: Jordan Gardner as president and his brother Andrew Gardner as vice president and general manager. Both spent last season with San Francisco City Football Club.

Through a mutual acquaintance, the Gardners met with Dragons co-owner Nick Swinmurn. By the end of the meeting, the wheels were set in motion to bring the Gardners aboard.

“It just kind of happened,” Jordan Gardner said. “We had been looking at running a PDL franchise ourselves. We heard [Swinmurn] was an entrepreneur, so we said we need to talk to this guy. We just sat down to chat about the Dragons and he realized we were on the same page and he had a need for this president/VP role.”

While both Jordan and Andrew will have specific duties — Jordan will handle more of the business and branding side of things, while Andrew will focus more on the team on the field — they both acknowledge they will both wear many hats.

“In an operation like this, it’s kind of a all-hands-on-deck type of thing,” Andrew Gardner said.

The Gardners are a couple of young guns trying to make it the world of sports. Jordan, 31, started a secondary-ticket sale website and Andrew, 29, went to work for his brother following his graduation from Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo in 2009.

For Andrew, working in the front office of a sports team was one of his dreams growing up. He played all the sports growing up, including soccer, but turned to football in high school in Davis and went on to become a college-caliber kicker.

“My dream would be to be the GM for fill-in-the-blank pro franchise,” Andrew said.

For now, they are intent on building on the foundation of what the Dragons set down last season and part of that is growing the relationship with its parent club — the Earthquakes.

“Our understanding was the relationship (with the Earthquakes) started a little slow,” Jordan Gardner said. “As the season progressed, toward the end of the season, the Earthquakes put a lot of development and focused a lot on the Dragons.

“The point is to promote the Earthquakes’ brand. The Quakes should be very hands on.”

The Gardners said they hope to soon sit down the Earthquakes’ director of development, Chris Leitch, to see which “technical direction” the Dragons will be heading.

One of the first big decisions the Gardners will be involved with is the search and hiring of a new coach. Jordan Gardner said Dana Taylor, the Dragons coach last season, will not be returning for the 2016 campaign. He expects the Earthquakes to have some say in the new hiring.

And they would welcome any help they can get.

“Any kind of support we can get from [the Earthquakes], it definitely helps us a lot,” Jordan Gardner said. “The connections they can bring, they just have resources we probably wouldn’t have access to.”

While the Gardners have hit the ground running, they believe they have the time before the start of the season to get all their ducks in a row.

“Last year got off to a late start,” Jordan Gardner said. “This year, having this announcement now, we have five, six, seven months (before the start of the season) so we’re fully prepared.”

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Half Moon Bay announced last week it has hired Julio Serrano to take over the girls’ soccer program.

Serrano, who played soccer and football before graduating from Half Moon Bay in 1996, was the head women’s soccer coach at the University of Pikesville from 2009 to 2011. He most recently was the head of coaching for the Half Moon Bay Soccer Club.

Nathan Mollat can be reached by email: nathan@smdailyjournal.com or by phone: 344-5200, ext. 117. You can follow him on Twitter @CheckkThissOutt.