Despite only being on campus since September, Associate Director of Safety and Security Carol McAllister has already become an invaluable asset, according to Director of Safety and Security Randy Nichols.
"She has exceeded my expectations," Nichols said. "She brings something to the table. She helps make the Office of Safety and Security top notch."
The position of Associate Director of Safety and Security was created last year. Before then, the department had two assistant directors—one for Operations and the other for Support Services. According to Nichols, when former assistant directors Mike Brown and Louann Dustin-Hunter left last year, the department reevaluated the management structure before posting a position for hire.
Although McAllister arrived at Bowdoin after filling the position of Executive Director at the Mid Coast Chapter of the American Red Cross in Topsham, she has spent most of her career as either an active or reserve member of the United States Coast Guard.
After graduating from Hofstra University in Long Island, New York, in 1991, McAllister entered officer candidate school for the Coast Guard in Yorktown, Va., in October of 1993, got her commission in early 1994, and worked five years of active duty in Washington, D.C., in the financial management sector of the Coast Guard.
"I got myself involved in as many environmentally related things as I could," she said. McAllister worked with issues such as oil spill response and audits for major oil companies.
She then transferred to the Marine Safety Office in San Francisco, where she became heavily involved in emergency response management, an area in which she excelled.
The Marine Safety Office adopted the Incident Command System (ICS) for the Coast Guard, a response management program that was developed in the 1970s but was not widely used until McAllister's office adopted and further developed the system in the late 1990s.
"My commanding officer at the time had started this program [in the Coast Guard], and created the first field guide," McAllister said.
Through her work and that of others in her office, ICS has become the standard emergency response management and training system for all federal agencies in the United States.
After working in hazardous materials response management in San Francisco and becoming a Lieutenant Commander, McAllister applied for reserve duty and moved to Iowa, where she raised a family and worked regulating commercial industry on the Mississippi River.
When the war in Iraq began, McAllister, through the Maritime Transportation Security Act of 2002, developed maritime security planning in the Midwest. She also served as the deputy planning section chief at the area field office in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.
In 2006, McAllister, a New England native, moved to Maine to be closer to family members.
"This is home to me," she said. "This is where I want to be."
She began working for the Red Cross in June of 2007, and her work eventually led her to Bowdoin. She contacted Bowdoin last summer when she was planning a pandemic flu conference.
"I was impressed that the College had been pretty progressive in their thinking for emergency planning on campus," she said. After browsing Bowdoin Security's Web site, she found the job opening for Associate Director of Safety and Security and decided to apply.
Her expertise in emergency management impressed Nichols.
"We spend a lot of time planning for big emergencies, we have a campus emergency management team, and we drill annually," he said. "I was looking for someone with further expertise."
McAllister fit the bill.
"She was able to demonstrate that she was just a very organized person and was very good with policies and procedures, as far as writing them," Nichols said. "She is very good at organizing big projects, and I was looking for a big project person."
In addition to her unique and advanced qualifications, McAllister and Nichols liked each other immediately.
"Our personalities gel," McAllister said.
"I think we just clicked personally," Nichols said. "My skill set complemented hers, hers complemented mine."
"She has a great sense of humor, and I have kind of an interesting sense of humor, too, so we're very comfortable in that realm," he added. "We can speak freely to each other and have total trust in each other. To me, trust and loyalty is huge but I also want to hear it like it is."
The partnership has proved successful during the course of the year.
"I'm very impressed with the College and the students in particular because the majority of students are very respectful and very much want to build a model of respect and community," McAllister said. "It's ingrained in everyone to be responsive and helpful and really focused on what the right thing is to do."
McAllister is currently overseeing several major projects at the College, including the security aspects of the OneCard system and the modernization of the security communications center.
"My first and foremost priority is to ensure the smooth operations of campus security from a personnel standpoint, a financial standpoint, and a training standpoint," McAllister said.
"She's taking a leadership role for me in virtually all aspects of campus emergency management," Nichols said. "I'm able to delegate with confidence and know that the job is going to be done, and done right. It's great to be able to delegate to people who can do the job better than you can do it."
In addition to her job at Bowdoin, McAllister is still a Lieutenant Commander in the Coast Guard and was selected for promotion to Commander, which she anticipates happening this summer.
In the meantime, however, McAllister continues to enjoy her work at the College.
"I love it, it's a great job," said McAllister. "I'm very happy here."