Two students and a professor from the Criminal Justice Management program at Nichols College in Dudley, Massachusetts, are attending the ASIS International 57th Annual Seminar and Exhibits courtesy of James L. Dunbar, CPP, chairman and founder of Dunbar Armored, Inc.

Mandy Manopla and William Wolfburg are in Orlando along with Kimberly Charbonneau, Nichols College professor and program chair of the Criminal Justice Management program. The students competed in an essay contest to win the trip to Orlando.

The students and their professor will attend sessions that relate to their individual interests. According to Dunbar, being at the conference gives the young students an opportunity to “take a look at ASIS and all the different companies that make up the bulk of security, not only in the United States, but all over the world,” he says. “I want them to become members and not wait until they are 30 or 40 to find out [about] ASIS.”

Mike Gambrill, Dunbar’s senior vice president for industry and government affairs and past chair of the ASIS International Law Enforcement Liaison Council (LELC), coordinated the trip. While in Orlando, the group will also tour the local office of Dunbar Armored.

This is the seventh year that Dunbar has hosted a trio from Nichols College, a private institution founded in 1815. As a member of the Board of Trustees and a Nichols College alumnus, Dunbar helped found the criminal justice program seven years ago. In 2004, he funded the James L. Dunbar Endowed Scholarship in Criminal Justice at the college.

When the college was looking for ways to expand their student population, he proposed the idea of starting a criminal justice management program. Other members of the board “stared at me blankly,” recalls Dunbar, thinking he was advocating that the college train graduates only for law enforcement positions. “They didn’t understand how large private sector security was as an industry,” he says.

The college turned to Gambrill, who had retired as the chief of police for Baltimore before joining Dunbar. Gambrill had already joined ASIS and had become involved with the LELC. He underscored the breadth of the private sector as it compared to the public sector, and those thoughts were instrumental in developing the Nichols curriculum.

Both Dunbar and Gambrill have been involved in creating partnerships between private security and law enforcement throughout their careers. Gambrill was instrumental in establishing a formal partnership between ASIS and the International Association of Chiefs of Police. In the same way, the two men believe fostering a partnership with college students is a commitment to the future of private security. Says Gambrill, “this is where the new leaders are coming from.”
 

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