Todd Pelazza provides commitment, dedication to Fairfield University

Sep 1, 2000 12:00 PM, KATE HENRY

Todd Pelazza, director of security at Fairfield University, Fairfield, Conn., is committed and dedicated. His commitment to the university is evident from his 24-year, career-long tenure there. His dedication to the life safety and security of the university's students is evident from the innovative, service-oriented programs he has instituted, several of which have been emulated elsewhere.

Pelazza began his career at Fairfield University in 1977, after obtaining a B.S. in law enforcement administration from the University of New Haven. While working as an officer at the university and concurrently as a municipal police officer in Branford, Conn., he found his path at the university level. Given Pelazza's subsequent successes serving students at the university, working with youth at the Special Olympics, and raising his own young children, that path seems to be more of a calling.

"Campus law enforcement is vastly different from law enforcement at the municipal or state levels," he explains. "Today, the big buzz is community-based policing, but that is what campus law enforcement has been about all along."

Frank Ficko, associate director for security for the university, contends that Pelazza's understanding of the unique needs of a campus environment is key to his distinguished career there. "He understands that because the department represents the institution, it has a critical role in educating members by example and service," says Ficko. "He teaches his department to be responsive to the needs of a young, intelligent, progressive community."

Pelazza describes his department, which comprises 18 full-time officers on a full staff of 27, as similar to a small police department, but with an even stronger service orientation. Officers protect the 4700 students and 900 faculty and staff at the small, Jesuit institution 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and they do so, in part, on bicycles. According to Ficko, "Todd realized that there was only so much positive `public relating' one could do sitting in two tons of steel." The result was the innovative Bicycle Patrol Program, begun in 1992 and now fully staffed.

"At the time, the program was among the first of its kind in New England," explains Pelazza. Officers at Fairfield University have been trained alongside officers from the Westport Police and Yale University. They have also helped in the creation of similar programs at Columbia University, Sacred Heart University and for the municipal police departments of Scarsdale, N.Y., and Stamford, Conn.

Pelazza says the opportunity to help reproduce the program elsewhere has been rewarding, but the most notable aspect of the program has been its success with students. "It is a real icebreaker for college-age people who can perceive officers in cruisers as unapproachable," he says. "The Bike Patrol Program gets officers out of their vehicles and gives them a chance to relate to students on a one-on-one, positive basis." Pelazza notes that the face of university communities has changed dramatically. "I see more and more students coming to college with far more complex lives than ever before. They already have paint on their canvasses, and our job is to help finish the painting. Keeping pace with the complexities of their lives is challenging, and the one-on-one interaction is key."

Pelazza's department also puts a positive foot forward by providing all emergency response services to the school community. Seventeen members of the security department are state-certified emergency medical technicians (EMTs), trained to provide the same level of care as an ambulance crew. Pelazza sends officers to 120 hours of classroom instruction, 16 hours of emergency room participation and eight hours of extrication observation.

The department's presence as a veritable lifeline has enhanced its relations with students, according to Ficko. "The necessary tools of our training - firearms, police batons, deterrent sprays - can convey negativity," he explains. "Towing cars, writing tickets, and disbanding underage drinking will always be parts of campus security's job, but our EMT capability demonstrates to students our concern for their well-being, and security's assistance is welcomed."

The time, effort and money Pelazza invested in the emergency response program at the university were recognized in 1998 when his department became the first higher-education law enforcement agency in Connecticut to be equipped with automated external defibrillators. According to Ficko, Pelazza orchestrated a stringent series of licensing, training, certifications and endorsements, resulting in the department's designation as a Supplemental First Responder for the town of Fairfield and surrounding region.

Pelazza points out that although his department is non-sworn and proprietary, the comprehensive training of his officers closely mirrors that of municipal police. Training includes, but is not limited to, effective handling of: handcuffing techniques, defensive sprays, batons and firearms; and effective response to threats from accidents and hazardous materials, aggressive behaviors, sexual assaults, bloodborn pathogens, dangerous driving and narcotics and gangs.

In his department and in other aspects of his life, Pelazza asserts that "treating others with respect and setting the highest standard of honesty and integrity are the keys to successful relations." He cites the continual evaluation of his department's effectiveness as an important goal, and pursues it, in part, through active involvement in security and law enforcement organizations. He is a graduate of the National Crime Prevention Institute; a former vice president of the Crime Prevention Association of Connecticut; a member of the Connecticut Chiefs of Police Association, the American Society of Law Enforcement Trainers (ASLET), the American Society for Industrial Security (ASIS), and the Northeast Colleges and Universities Security Association (NCUSA). He currently serves as the Connecticut state representative for the government relations committee for the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement (IACLEA) and on the Connecticut State Police Legislative Committee.

A tenet upon which Fairfield University is built and one that Pelazza takes to heart is the value of giving back. He has done so for nearly two decades through involvement with the Special Olympics. "I have gotten back ten-fold what I have given to that organization. The athletes have taught me what courage and determination really mean." Pelazza believes in another tenet apropos to that work: Obstacles are things a person sees when his eyes are off his goals.

As a single parent, Pelazza finds that the other teachers in his life are his two small children, a daughter and a son. A family of outdoors people for all seasons, they can be found hiking, fishing, skiing, mountain biking or kayaking.

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