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July 18, 2001

   
Ex-SF Police Chief Likes Campus Challenges
   
By Jackie Jadrnak
Journal Staff Writer
   His inability to unite factions in Santa Fe's Police Department didn't discourage former Police Chief Don Grady II. He moved on to Kosovo, Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Middle East.
    He apparently had better luck in those hot spots.
    Now Grady, who served as chief of the University of New Mexico's campus police in the early '90s, is coming full circle. His next job is taking him to Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, where he will be police chief and director of public safety beginning Aug. 1.
    While Grady, 48, said that while he will always have a place in his heart for New Mexico, this new job will be something of a homecoming for him. He grew up in Beloit, Wis., and his two daughters, his mother and a number of other family members live in Wisconsin.
    Grady sees himself as something of a trouble-shooter and said he was attracted by some of the challenges on the campus, such as concerns about racial profiling.
    Former Santa Fe Mayor Debbie Jaramillo brought Grady in as police chief in August 1994 from his job at UNM. He quickly met resistance from some officers on the Santa Fe force. They were vocal in their complaints until he left in February 1996. Members of the police union voted overwhelmingly in May 1995 that they had "no confidence" in Grady, who made changes such as lengthening shifts, eliminating specialized units and banning personal items from patrol cars.
    Grady said he left the department so he could finish his Ph.D. in administration and management from Walden University in Minneapolis. His dissertation, he said, focused on resistance to change.
    When he finished his doctorate, Grady said, he was interested in getting some experience in international police work and was negotiating with the U.S. Department of Justice to go to Liberia. But then the U.S. State Department approached him about putting together an international police unit that in turn would create a multi-ethnic police force in Brcko, Bosnia-Herzegovina, he said.
    The force would include Bosnians, Croats and Serbs groups that had been killing each other, he said. They put together a police force by letting leaders of the various ethnic groups rate candidates from the other groups, but not their own, he said. That resulted in moderates, instead of extremists, being selected for the police force, he said.
    "It's a success story I'm quite proud of," Grady said of the results.
    PHOTO: b/w
    GRADY: Sees himself as something of a trouble-shooter