The new interim director of the Department of Public Safety may be at the University temporarily, but Richard Turkiewicz said he has plenty of goals he wants to achieve, including improving parking services for students and staff.
After 18 years as the Director of Public Safety and Police at the University of Central Florida, Turkiewicz started his job as interim director of DPS in early March. Former Interim Director Tom Hicks resigned from his three-year interim director position at the end of December. Vice President for Finance and Administration Frances Dyke previously told the Emerald she selected Turkiewicz because of his experience. He brings almost 34 years in campus law enforcement and 43 years total in law enforcement to the University.
“I don’t think there’s any case I haven’t seen,” Turkiewicz said. He said his experiences include the death of a fellow officer, homicide, abduction and assault on professors.
Turkiewicz said he got into law enforcement by accident.
“I never had any inclination of going into law enforcement,” he said.
Turkiewicz joined the New York State Police after working as an engineering aide and going to college. He said he worked a variety of jobs with the state police in New York. He got his bachelor’s degree from the State University of New York at Fredonia.
Originally a kid who “grew up on the wrong side of the tracks” and skipped school, Turkiewicz said a stint in the Navy helped discipline him. He said he wasn’t sure exactly what he wanted to do but said he knew he always wanted to help people.
“You have to have a service mentality and want to help others,” he said. “You go into law enforcement for the challenges, for the excitement, but the bottom line is that you want to help people.”
He answered the call to transfer from the state police to campus law enforcement in the early 1970s, because he wanted to earn a master’s degree in social science from the State University of New York at Buffalo.
“I just felt that education was basically my key for success, and I’ve always been a person that, maybe I didn’t start out that way in high school, but I knew after marriage it was something that I needed to do for myself and my family,” Turkiewicz said.
He said he might apply for the permanent DPS director position when the University hires a candidate, which should happen within six months through the national recruiting firm Bob Murray & Associates.
“I’m leaning that way,” Turkiewicz said. “This is not a decision that I would make alone, but with my family.”
Turkiewicz applied for the interim position at the University in mid-December to be closer to family in Portland, he said.
After talking to students, staff and administrators, he said he would like to:
? Fully staff DPS.
? Prepare and plan for the Olympic Track & Field Trials, which will be held in 2008 at Hayward Field. Turkiewicz has helped police large events, including 1994 World Cup soccer matches held in Orlando and 1996 Olympic soccer games in Orlando.
? Expand online parking services and offer an online parking permit order. “You would go online, print out a temporary decal, good for X amount of days until you obtain your other one,” Turkiewicz said. He added that customers would then get the permanent decal mailed to them or it would be available at DPS offices with a registration number.
? Continue to develop partnerships internally and externally with the ASUO, the Emerald and the Eugene Police Department.
? Increase training opportunities for officers.
? Obtain new building space for DPS headquarters.
? Examine alternative modes of transportation.
? Examine campus parking services, including the possibility of a parking structure and replacing and upgrading meters.
“I think that’s enough on my plate,” he said. “These are all goals that I would like to accomplish or at least set in motion by September 2007.”
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