Academy Appoints Paul Gravel as The New Director of Campus Safety
On Monday Apr. 27, Paul Gravel officially assumed his role as the Academy’s new director of Campus Safety Services. The previous director, Jeff Nelson, left last November.
Gravel oversees the patrol side of Campus Safety, the group that provides the day-to-day security on campus. In addition, he is involved with occupational and environmental safety, the effects of which students may not be seen directly on campus as they include lead testing, construction site monitoring and badge/card access distribution to vendors on campus.
“It is essential that we have the support of Campus Safety in our work managing all these roles, in addition to installing and maintaining systems that protect the health and safety of the people in our building and the integrity of our collections.”
“It is [Campus Safety]’s job to facilitate students to be able to learn, faculty to be able to teach and administrators to be able to do their job in administration,” Gravel said. “We’re facilitators. We’re there when somebody needs to address something that’s out of the ordinary, or [when it is] as simple as transporting someone from one place to another.”
During the five-month gap between Nelson and Gravel, Safety Operations Manager Javier Londono held office as acting director. A search committee, consisting of eight personnel, was formed in late January to search for a permanent director.
According to Chief of Planning and Facilities Roger Wakeman, who chaired the committee, candidates had to possess four key attributes: appropriate educational and career background, desire and fit to work in a high school residential community, strong leadership skills and the ability to connect with the community and an uncompromising level of integrity.
Along with Director of Human Resources Shanna Hines, Wakeman took the pool of over eighty candidates and narrowed it down to fifteen for further investigation. The committee then selected six for phone interviews and three for on-campus interviews. Of those candidates, two finalists were invited to the Academy campus to interact and interview with faculty, department heads and students.
Gravel, who found the job opportunity through the Indeed employment search engine, found the hiring process “extremely impressive” and commented on the thought and energy put into hiring for the director position. “The committee didn’t just want to pull somebody in,” he said. “They wanted to make sure that the person hired would be a good fit on campus, and, by the same token, I wanted to make sure it was a good fit for me. And it was.”
Academy librarian and search committee member Gail Scanlon explained the connection between Campus Safety and the Library. “We support the academic mission of the school, provide cultural events for the community, serve as a home away from home for day students, plus host over 1000 architects and fans of Louis Kahn each year,” she said. “It is essential that we have the support of Campus Safety in our work managing all these roles, in addition to installing and maintaining systems that protect the health and safety of the people in our building and the integrity of our collections.”
“It was critical for me to find a new director who understood the Library’s unique needs as a private school building frequented by the public,” Scanlon added.
Gravel, with his extensive and diverse background, fit those needs. He completed his undergraduate studies in Criminal Justice at Saint Anselm College and joined the Nashua, New Hampshire police department shortly after completing an internship. After serving nearly 24 months as a police officer, he retired as a bureau commander with the rank of captain. During those years, Gravel worked roles relating to narcotics and major crimes. He was part of a SWAT team, hazardous device unit and crisis negotiation unit.
After spending some time in the training division, Gravel received an MBA from Franklin Pierce University with an emphasis in organizational leadership. In the years following, he held a position as an investigator and subsequently physical security manager for the Royal Bank of Scotland—when he was hired, there were an excess of 1500 branches of the banking company. Afterwards, Gravel delved into consulting for public safety consulting companies, police departments and campus safety systems of schools across the country. Most recently, prior to arriving at the Academy, he worked as the Security Manager for the City of Manchester, N.H.
Londono looks forward to working with Gravel. “It’s exciting to have a new director, and obviously I’m looking forward to working with him, supporting him and making sure my area—support and dispatch—is taken care of. He has an extensive background, and a lot of experience and knowledge, and I’m sure that will benefit our team,” he said.
Only one week into his tenure, Gravel is in the proces of contacting figures around Exeter such as the Chief of Police and the Fire Chief. In the near future, he hopes to open exchanges and reliable communication with the two respective departments to check in with both cautionary and urgent matters.
On campus, Gravel hopes to stimulate communication between Campus Safety officers and students.
To do so, he wishes to have more officers patrol on foot and on bicycles as opposed to in cars.
“What I want to see over my tenure is for every student to know every security officer by name, to be able to reach out to them if there’s any issue or if they just want to talk, or to just have an open-minded communication,” he said. “Communication is everything.”
“I look forward to my time here,” Gravel continued. “I love it here. I’m a perfect fit for this job and obviously the people that hired me thought the same thing. But this is my dream job, and I’m really excited to be here and hit the ground running.”