Security’s Allen Daniels relishes time at Bowdoin

Behind the Name tag: Paul Joyce: hitting the waves for Bowdoin

Paul Joyce wears many hats on Bowdoin’s campus. He works for the Office of Safety and Security, the Bowdoin College Museum of Art (BCMA) and drives boats for the Department of Earth and Oceanographic Science (EOS).
Joyce is a retired marine patrol warden for the state of Maine, and has been working at the College since 2011.
Born in Brookline, Mass., Joyce has lived and worked all over the coast of Maine, from the Canadian border to Downeast. He graduated with a degree in biology from the University of Massachusetts Boston. After graduation, he went to work for the Department of Marine Resources (DMR) in Maine.
“I didn’t have the patience to sit in the lab,” Joyce said. “I had to move and be outside.”
As a supervisor in the DMR, Joyce was in charge of a 47-foot boat—set up like a lobster boat—with a team of six. Their biggest task was oversight of fishing off the coast of Maine.“Fishing itself is so highly regulated that in order to comply with all the rules, you have to have some sort of regulatory body, although we look for voluntary compliance,” Joyce said.
The DMR is also tasked with handling issues of pollution and public safety. They are responsible for all of Maine’s waters, which are quite extensive due to the miles of coastline and numerous bays and islands that extend the state’s water boundaries.
Following retirement, he came to Bowdoin through his connections to Director of Safety and Security Randy Nichols, formerly a major in the state police, and David Mercier, who runs the boat for Associate Professor of Earth and Oceanographic Science Emeritus Edward Laine. These days, Joyce does security at the BCMA on weekends, drives boats for classes and teaches van certification classes on campus.
“It’s a fun job, being retired,” Joyce said. “The campus is busy, very vibrant with students. It makes for a very interesting day or evening.”
“I’m always shifting gears. It’s really good. Working with the coastal studies [classes] is probably the part I enjoy the most,” said Joyce. “I get to see the latest and greatest with the sciences that they’re coming out with in schools and hear some of the lectures.”
Outside of Bowdoin, Joyce leads recreational tidewater fishing groups on his own boat. He has permission from the state for all kinds of guiding except whitewater rafting.
In addition to his nautical interests, Joyce gardens extensively at his home. In his raised-bed garden he grows cucumbers, garlic, tomatoes, zucchini and sunflowers.
“If you can eat it, I’ll grow it. And if you can grow it in Maine, I’ll eat it,” he said.Joyce has two children—a son studying illustration and concept art in Sweden and a daughter graduating from the UC Davis School of Law in four weeks.
With all of his work, guiding, gardening and keeping in touch with his family, he hardly has a minute to rest.
“Retirement is busy,” he said with a laugh.

Behind the Name tag: Hidden hobby: from hard drives to hot rods

Crystal Hall, associate professor in the digital humanities, has fond memories of participating in the Brunswick Memorial Day Parade. She rode alongside her father and Rene Bernier, laboratory instructor/support manager and Science Center manager, as they gave rides in their World War II Jeeps to veterans. These experiences piqued her interest in cars, and as soon as she was old enough to hold a screwdriver, she began helping her dad in his garage.
Hall began seriously working on cars when she was 13.
“We restored my Jeep before I got my learner’s permit so that we could go off-roading with it,” she said.
Hall is currently in the process of creating a hot rod from a 1934 Dodge, a car of particular sentimental value as it is the same type of car her grandfather drove. She has restored one and half cars with her dad, but the ’34 Dodge will be the first hot rod she has built.
Creating a hot rod is the process of drastically improving old cars—different from restoring cars, which is taking an old car and bringing it back to working order.
Building a hot rod can be time-consuming and frustrating. For Hall and her father, it is more like a jigsaw puzzle.
“The biggest challenge with the hot rod is that you have a completely blank canvas to work with,” said Hall. “My father and I are very meticulous about history and historical accuracy and being very precise in our work, but there isn’t a blueprint for how to make this hot rod, so it’s really challenging our creative side.”
As a professor whose main focus is working with computers, working with cars allows Hall to clear her mind and get her hands dirty. Unlike coding, where the products are on a screen, the results of restoring cars are tangible and immediate.
“It’s satisfying to code, but it’s a completely different satisfaction to clean something, paint something and put something together,” said Hall.
Through her work restoring and building cars, Hall has noticed improvements in other areas of her life. She credits these improvements to the intelligence her dad has shared with her.
“Watching him think and problem solve and the different ways he approaches problems has helped me to be more flexible and open to different ways of solving problems,” said Hall. “When you are coding, that’s the best thing you can ask for.”
Another benefit of creating a hot rod is having the ability to build it exactly to one’s needs. With the ’34 Dodge, Hall is planning to install a Corvette engine and transmission as a nod to her dad’s favorite type of cars. She is planning on picking a Porsche color for the car as a nod to her long-lasting infatuation with Porsches.
“That’s where the amalgamation of parts and pieces of different places comes into play,” Hall said. “We’re picking from the things we really like and the flexibility of being able to put them together.”
Hall and her father plan to begin the assembly process of the Dodge in September and hope to have it up and running by next summer. They went on a road trip to retrieve the car parts and plan to go on another one when the hot rod is finished.
“I have a feeling hot rods are in my future for a long time,” said Hall.

Behind the Name tag

Security’s Allen Daniels relishes time at Bowdoin

May 1, 2015

Wylie Mao

SAFE AND SOUND: Security Officer Allen Daniels’ favorite part of his job is interacting with students. Outside of work, he enjoys running, skiing, disk golf and spending time with his newborn daughter.

Working as a security officer on a college campus isn’t for everyone, but Security Officer Allen Daniels says working at Bowdoin makes his job easy.

“It’s the students. I wouldn’t do this job for any other college—I can’t imagine it,” said Daniels. “I genuinely appreciate the students here. I love my conversations with them. They make my job very, very easy.”

Born and raised in southern New Hampshire, Daniels graduated high school and enlisted in the Army. For four years, he was a part of the third U.S. Infantry Regiment, a unit commonly known as the Old Guard.

“In the Old Guard, we do all the ceremonies and funerals in Arlington National Cemetery…we do all the simple and full honor funerals,” said Daniels. “We’re also the official escort to the president. We are kind of a ceremonial post—we do have training, but we don’t have a wartime mission, only to honor the fallen.”

After his time in the army, Daniels lived in Washington D.C. to gain his “city experience” and then went on to graduate from Plymouth State University in New Hampshire. Eventually, he settled in Maine with his girlfriend (now wife), applied for a job at Bowdoin, and was given the position six months later.

“I come to work pretty happy every day, and leave happy every day. The hardest part of my job is seeing people make poor decisions, and I do see people at their worst—I don’t often get to see them at their best, just because I’m usually here during the night time,” said Daniels.

Last weekend, Daniels and the rest of the security staff prepared for Ivies. Security was given post assignments a week ahead of time. Security was out in full force, stationing as many officers as possible at each event.

“We [aim to] guide things, rather than manipulate what’s happening. It goes back to what I said previously, I wouldn’t want to do this at another school,” said Daniels. “So even this big weekend, our stress level does go up, but mostly because of long hours. The stuff we deal with—especially this Ivies—is really not that much. We had two transports [one alcohol related and one injury related], and other than that it was well-controlled chaos. It’s just planning.”

In his opinion, the weekend went smoothly, and contrary to popular belief, the real trouble did not stem from Bowdoin students. Rather, visitors of students and town residents caused the brunt of the problems during the weekend.

“The drinking gets a lot of publicity, but comparatively speaking, it’s really well-contained,” said Daniels. “I think the policies here, the ResLife office, and the Deans’ office do a good job. It helps to make sure that everyone has a really good time and is safe doing so.”

Outside of Bowdoin, Daniels runs and plays disc golf, but the majority of his time is spent skiing and taking care of his newborn daughter.

“Her name is Evelyn Winter. Evelyn is my wife’s grandmother’s name. Winter is because I love winter—the deeper the snow the better... I live to ski and for sliding on snow. My first job was at a ski shop, waxing skis, and I’ve done just about every job on the mountain, and I have loved all of them.”

Daniels lives in Phippsburg, close to Brunswick, but will always call southern New Hampshire home. Although he misses his mountains and their peaks, he always looks on the brighter side.
“I joke with my wife that if I can’t live in the mountains, the beach isn’t a bad place to be.”

Editor's note: A previous version of this article did not clarify that of the two transports during Ivies weekend that Daniels mentions in a quotation, one was in relation to alcohol and the other was in response to a student sustaining a serious injury. Officially, there was only one alcohol-related "transport" during the weekend.

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