His first professional job started in 1989 at the University of Oregon as regional director and fundraiser for the Duck Athletic Fund.
In 2006, Bartko returned to the Bay area of his youth to be senior associate athletic director for development at UC Berkeley.
[1] But in 2007, Bartko came back to his true home at the University of Oregon where he flourished for seven years as senior associate athletic director.
[4] During his tenure there, he notably hired Jeff Tedford, who became the football coach that turned around the Bulldogs from losing to winning seasons in two years.
Bartko's Fresno years ended in November 2017 [5][6] in the wake of fallout from his going public in January 2017[7] about a lifelong secret of child sex abuse at the hands of his basketball-coaching priest, which he'd been struggling with for decades until his coping mechanisms, having taken an enormous toll, finally collapsed, metaphorically, during his years at Fresno.