Taking the helm of a failing government program is many a public servant’s career nightmare. But Dr. David Boyd rose to that challenge in 2003 when he was appointed director of SAFECOM, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security program created to promote interoperable wireless communications among the nation’s emergency first responders.

 

SAFECOM was designed to fix long-standing communications problems that gained attention after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. (On Sept. 11, many New York City first responders—firefighters, police, EMTs—could not communicate with each other because their radios operated on different frequencies. The resulting chaos contributed to casualties.) SAFECOM had failed.

 

“As often happens with federal- and state-directed programs, SAFECOM’s former managers initially tried to force state and local agencies to do what federal managers—who had no experience with community public safety organizations—thought was the right thing to do,” Boyd says.

 

The result, he adds, was a major loss of credibility among the agencies. By 2003, Boyd says, few cities had made any progress toward communications interoperability, adding that Congress considered the initiative a “massive failure.”

 

Boyd thought SAFECOM was redeemable and vitally important. “If you cannot communicate, you cannot command, control, or manage any emergency,” he says.

 

Fixing SAFECOM meant reorienting the program. “It meant listening to local officials about what they needed rather than telling them what the federal program thought they should do,” he says. It also meant bridging police, fire, and emergency medical service cultures and finding ways for neighboring jurisdictions to develop cooperative plans and policies.

 

Boyd cultivated his partnership-building skills while working in the public and private sectors, most notably during his 20-year Army career. “I had served on a NATO staff and on the Joint Chiefs of Staff with officers from different services with different service agendas,” Boyd says. He also had experience working with first responders during his 10 years as director of the National Institute of Justice’s Office of Science and Technology.

 

Boyd’s Ph.D. in Applied Management and Decision Sciences from Walden was also important. He says that one of the early questions at the Department of Homeland Security was how to ensure that the staff had the experience and the credentials to be credible. “I can tell you that if you didn’t have a Ph.D., you would not have been accepted,” Boyd says.

 

At SAFECOM, Boyd used his knowledge and skills to forge alliances with first responders all over the country. “I made it a point to contact as many members of the first-responder community as possible by agreeing to speak at their conferences, participate in panels, and most importantly by building my own advisory council,” he says.

 

Boyd turned SAFECOM around in about six months and grew the program over the next two years. Based on SAFECOM’s and Boyd’s success, the White House recently transferred disaster management—another troubled initiative—to Boyd’s office to be reshaped.

 

“The best advice I can give to someone in a similar situation is this: Swallow your ego, listen, and make the people you serve your partners and advocates,” Boyd says.

 

 

 

 

Dr. Bhaskara Reddy Moole Ph.D. in Applied Management and Decision Sciences, 2005 Dissertation: A Probabilistic Multidimensional Data Model and Its Applications in Business Management   Moole created a framework to modify existing probabilistic multidimensional data and improve demand-forecasting products. Results from this study could become a data model standard in the area of applied decision sciences. Moole has published four papers relating to his dissertation and been referenced by other researchers in this area.           Dr. Nancy Musarra Ph.D. in Psychology, 2005 Dissertation: Information-Processing Skills Related to Working Memory in Individuals with Asperger’s Disorder   Musarra’s research suggests that efforts to enhance working-memory capacity may help people with Asperger’s disorder more effectively engage in complex information processing and participate more effectively in reciprocal social interactions.           Dr. Kozhi Makai Ph.D. in Applied Management and Decision Sciences, 2005 Dissertation: Culture and Leadership: A Comparison of Cultural Orientation and Leadership Preference Among College Students in Zambia and the United States   Makai found that leadership is as much an organizational phenomenon as a cultural phenomenon. How members of a culture accept social hierarchy and regard paternalistic and heroic leadership holds implications for what they believe is good leadership.           Dr. Dia Kamel Hassan Ph.D. in Health Services, 2005   Hassan’s research examined the role of hospital accreditation standards in addressing quality problems at hospitals on a global level. She focused on the Joint Commission International—an initiative of the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Health Care Organizations—to determine its effect on health care quality. Hassan, who is the director of quality at Al Wasl Hospital in Dubai City, has presented her results to the JCI and co-authored a book that builds on her dissertation findings.           A. Marlene Klingeman M.S. in Psychology, 2005 Thesis: The Etiology of Bipolar Disorder: A Glial Hypothesis   Klingeman’s thesis consists of a literature review— that shows a dearth of research on the role of glial cells in bipolar disorder—and two proposed studies to examine glial cells’ potential involvement in the disorder. “The only way to dispel misunderstandings about bipolar disorder is to establish a definite etiology rooted in biology and to communicate the findings to the general public,” says Klingeman.           Jeff Kunz M.S. in Systems Engineering, 2005 M.B.A., 2003 M.S. in Computer Engineering, 1995   Kunz has earned three degrees from the NTU College and is sharing his knowledge by teaching some of its courses.           Alyson Kluskowski (Daughter of 2006 M.S. in Education graduate Sandy Kluskowski)   Even after her father (Sandy’s husband) died, Alyson encouraged her mother to earn her degree. At ages 12 and 13, she took over household chores and helped care for her younger brother, earning her this award for going above and beyond.

 

 

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