Campus Safety Announces Director of the Year Finalists

Campus Safety has announced the finalists of its 9th Annual Campus Safety Director of the Year awards program. The winners and runners up will be announced at the Campus Safety Conference in Washington, D.C., this July. Complete coverage of the winners will appear this fall in Campus Safety magazine as well as on CampusSafetyMagazine.com.

The finalists and some of their notable achievements are:

Jonathan Finch

Director of Campus Safety and Police
Tri-County Technical College
Pendleton, S.C.
Notable Achievements:

Recommended and received approval from the college for the transitioning of his department officers from unarmed to armed.
Developed the colleges incident command team, and lead the team through multiple table-top exercises and workshops.
Developed more effective budgetary guidelines for department spending, which resulted in more than $5,000 cost savings over six months.

Brian Gard

Manager of Safety and Health
National Heritage Academies Inc.
Grand Rapids, Mich.
Notable Achievements:

Standardized safety practices and equipment in more than 80 NHA K-12 schools across nine states.
Created the role of the school safety specialist to be the resident safety expert on each NHA campus and trained the specialists how to conduct site assessments and de-escalate potentially violent situations.
Retrofitted campuses with vestibules and buzzer systems, and improved campus access control and visitor management policies and procedures.

Jeff Karpovich

Director of Security and Emergency Management
University of Central Florida
Orlando, Fla.
Notable Achievements:

Developed a comprehensive emergency management program that is a model for the State University System of Florida
Obtained 1603 Hearo Radios through a donation from the Florida Division of Emergency Management, saving $160,300 and expanding the UCF Alert system.
Hosted a regional full-scale mass casualty exercise, partnering with 60 agencies, 1,200 support personnel and over 1,000 participants.

Joseph Paulino

Chief of Police
San Bernardino City Unified School District
San Bernardino, Calif.
Notable Achievements:

Department participated in several programs designed to address at-risk youth challenges, including the Colton at Risk Teens Academy, the Gang Reduction Intervention Partnership (GRIP) and the San Bernardino County Gang and Drug Task Force.
Implemented a district-wide video surveillance system that is monitored 24/7 by the SBCUSD Police Department’s dispatch center. Live camera feeds can be viewed by officers on their laptops.
Upgraded the department’s two-way radio system, resolving communication interoperability issues between his department and other local police agencies.