Jolene Nacapuy
Sports Editor
After retiring as chief of police for the Riverside Community College District, Jim Miyashiro knew retirement was not for him and stepped back into the leadership role.
In March, the University welcomed Hawaii native Miyashiro as the senior director of university safety operations.
Miyashiro succeeds Jeff Clark, who served as interim director of campus safety after Stanley Skipworth stepped down from the position in 2014.
Miyashiro said he loves the job so far, and has many goals to better campus safety for the University.
One of them includes collaborating more with the students, faculty and staff on communicating better with each other.
“I’m still kind of assessing things, but part of the things that I’d like to do is have a bigger collaborative so that we could get everyone to help us because we’re small in size, and I think the key to keeping things safe is by having people that are going to help us report things they see,” Miyashiro said.
“I think trying to build a stronger collaborative is my main goal.”
As senior director of university safety operations, Miyashiro will oversee campus safety, transportation and parking operations.
“In this position, you got to have someone with law enforcement background, a law enforcement understanding because of the role of the position of campus safety in working with the La Verne Police Department on issues where you got to be brought in, so they’ve got to have a strong law enforcement background,” vice president for facilities and technology Clive Houston-Brown said. “But at the same time, we want someone who’s got a strong understanding of high education and how law enforcement is applied in the university setting.”
Miyashiro had the ideal mix of the two, and was the perfect candidate, Houston-Brown said.
Miyashiro has a long history of law enforcement background.
He worked for more than 31 years in various law enforcement agencies, including municipal police departments, colleges, universities and school district police departments.
He has worked as a police officer, canine handler to detective, sergeant, lieutenant and chief.
Miyashiro spent his last 18 years as a police chief at different educational institutions.
Miyashiro has been adapting well to the University setting and the surroundings with his previous background, Clark said. “So far, he’s shown that he’s a good leader bring his expertise into everything,” Clark said.
Miyashiro hopes to implement a lot of training at the University, not just for the faculty and staff, but the students as well.
“A part of it is to train students so that they know what to do in emergencies,” Miyashiro said.
“When they see things happening, and they happen real quick, they’ll know why we’re doing it a certain way, they’ll know what to do and what their role is. The more you train, the better equipped you are when something happens.”
Miyashiro’s main focus is the overall safety of the University, though when he is not doing that, he likes to relax by flying airplanes or enjoying football games, especially the Seattle Seahawks and the Ohio State Buckeyes.
Besides his alarm, waking up each morning before work, it is the type of work he gets to do that makes it easier to get out there and do his job.
“I’ve done this type of work for a number of years, and I just wasn’t ready to retire yet and there were a lot of things to do,” Miyashiro said.
“I loved being on campus and around this environment, and working with the faculty, staff and students, so I plan to keep doing this for a long time, and will have to get used to that alarm.”
Jolene Nacapuy can be reached at jolene.nacapuy@laverne.edu.
