Connie Sampson

Accomplished law enforcement professional with vast experience in police. As my resume shows, I have worked in both municipal policing as well as campus policing.  I have been employed  at  Georgia  State  University  first  as  Director  of  Police  Operations  and  later  promoted  to Assistant Vice President/Chief of Police and then to Associate Vice President/Chief of Police. I was hired for the position in February 1996, shortly before Atlanta hosted the XXVI Olympic Games. Georgia State University hosted an Olympic venue.  In addition to my duties as Director of Police Operations for Georgia State University, we worked with all of the security, local, state and federal law enforcement on the XXVI Olympic Games effort. I continue to rely on the partnerships developed during this time.

A number of challenges faced me as Director of Police Operations at Georgia State University. The University was growing and changing at a rapid pace and its mission was changing as well. Because the mission of the University was changing, the mission of the police department needed to change also.

To accomplish the task of professionalizing the department, I worked with University and community members in order to establish what the campus and the community needed as it relates to safety and security. I guided and directed those efforts.  We worked with focus groups and cross-functional teams to establish a number of goals. These teams were composed of faculty, staff, students and community partners. We developed action plans to measure our progress and successes. I also took a very close look at the personnel in the department, assessing their strengths and weaknesses. Only after a long drawn out assessment process did I make transfers and rearrange reporting structures, duties and responsibilities. This effort also involved extensive training and mentoring individuals who were current members of the department as well as hiring personnel from other agencies.

Some of our successes under my leadership was to reduce crime in one of our housing complexes by 18%. This was accomplished through our Scanning Analysis Response Assessment (SARA) model of Community Policing. A similar analysis was used to increase the efficiency of our Safety Escort Service. Working with student users, we analyzed the entire operation focusing on response time.  After making operational changes, we reduced the time from the initial call for service to arriving at a specific location by two minutes. Other successes we have achieved by using the classic model of Community Policing has been in our education and enforcement efforts with the establishment of a Pedestrian Safety Team. Working with a group of faculty and students, we established a need for education, training and enforcement and partnered with the Governor’s Office of Highway Safety for funding. Our effort involved utilizing a combination of enforcement and education to minimize accidents and injuries involving members of our community.  We  have  received  a  number  of  awards  from  the  Atlanta  office  of  PEDS,  (Pedestrian Educating Drivers about Safety). We also partner with local, state, and federal police as well as other colleges and university police and private security in the downtown Atlanta area to achieve a synergistic effect as it relates to securing our environment. This takes the form of actually patrolling, investigating and utilizing joint task forces to achieve a general or specific purpose.

In 2007, after years of lobbying for and establishing a legitimate need for assistance in my department with emergency management issues, our Department of Emergency Management was established. We recruited and hired the best individuals and today this department has numerous accomplishments that help to insure the safety and security of our community in the event of natural or manmade critical events or disasters in which life and/or property is threatened. This Department consists of a Director of Emergency Management, Fire Safety Officers and technicians.

In 2008, I was promoted to Assistant Vice President.  My duties at this time were elevated to include Emergency Management, Police, and Building Services. The addition of Building Services added two hundred additional personnel to my area of responsibility.  This was done, in part, to train and utilize all of these individuals as part of the security function even though their primary function remained cleaning and maintaining the buildings and the upkeep of the grounds. This is a unique arrangement, but it works for us. This also adds an additional layer of security to our community. The Building Services personnel have embraced their added duties and responsibilities.

Under my direction and leadership, the police department worked extremely hard for years to achieve what very few police and security organizations achieve. We received and continue to hold the “Triple Crown” of proven professionalism. This was achieved by the department attaining State of Georgia Certification by the Georgia Association of Chiefs of Police, International Accreditation by the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, CALEA, and Accreditation by the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators. Georgia State University is the only campus police organization in Georgia to achieve the “Triple Crown” of proven professionalism.

I truly enjoyed my work at Georgia State University. I attributed my success to a great group of dedicated, well trained employees and to the numerous partnerships that I have nurtured and developed with the university community, local, state and federal law enforcement as well as the private sector.

I am currently working as an Associate of D. Stafford & Associates and have been assigned by DSA as an Interim Director of Public Safety at Forsyth Technical Community College and Young Harris College.