Campus Safety magazine announced the winners of its Director of the Year awards program today at Campus Safety Conference West in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The top prize was awarded to four campus protection executives. Ronald Hurley, Associate Vice President of Public Safety at New Jersey City University, and James Johnson, Assistant Vice President for Campus Safety at the University of Texas at Austin, tied for the top spot in the higher education sector. Joseph Markham, Executive Director of Security and Support Services at Pine Crest School in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., is the winner of the K-12/school district sector, and Mark Reed, Director of Support Services at Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Hospital in Los Angeles won the healthcare sector.
This year’s winners are Ronald Hurley (far left) of New Jersey City University, James Johnson (second from left) of the University of Texas at Austin, Joseph Markham of Pine Crest School in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and Mark Reed of Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Hospital in Los Angeles.
The competition for the Director of the Year top award was the toughest ever this year with CS naming a record 27 finalists from across the nation.
“I don’t envy the judges who were responsible for picking the winners,” says CS Editor-in-Chief Robin Hattersley. “Several of them told me just how impressed they were with the nominations and that they struggled with their selections because there were so many good ones.”
Because the competition was so tight, three runners up were also named. Jerry McConnell, Director of Facility Operations and Emergency Management at Moore Norman Technology Center, and Gus Paidousis, Chief/Director of Security at Knox County Schools were runners up in the K-12 category. Jeff Hauk, Director of Public Safety and Police Authority Services at Memorial Healthcare, was named runner up in healthcare.
The entries were judged by a distinguished panel of healthcare, higher education and school security, public safety and emergency management experts. The judges included Gary Sigrist Jr. of Safeguard Risk Solutions, Fuller Theological Seminary Chief Gary Mejia, Allied Universal Vice President of Healthcare Lisa Terry, hospital security consultant Tom Smith, Idaho Office of School Safety and Security Analyst Guy Bliesner, patient and caregiver safety advocate Chuck Denham, Safety Advisors for Educational Campuses President S. Daniel Carter and CS’ very own Amy Rock and Katie Malafronte.
Although the Director of the Year awards program honors our nation’s top campus protection executives, this year at CSC West, Hattersley wanted to also acknowledge the departments that supported the program’s finalists.
“Behind every great campus security director, police chief and emergency management director is a great team,” says Hattersley. “That’s why at our awards ceremony at CSC West this year, we featured a video that highlighted the department employees and officers who, day in and day out, are the backbone of any K-12, college or hospital public safety department. We wanted to show them just how much we appreciate them.”
All four winners of this year’s Director of the Year program will be featured in the October and November/December issues of Campus Safety magazine as well as online at CampusSafetyMagazine.com. Additionally, CS will begin accepting nominations for next year’s program this fall.
Congratulations to our winners, runners up, finalists and their departments!
