Students here at Ouachita are protected and assisted by the campus employees of Whelan Security Company. The account manager of the security team is Deryl Baumgardner. Baumgardner is vital to the proper functioning of the campus security. Located in the Office of Campus Security in Evans Student Center, Baumgardner works diligently to perform many duties each day.
These duties include the training of security officers; making uniform, employee and vehicle inspections; making employee schedules; conducting investigations; patrolling the Ouachita campus to detect and deter crime and controlling traffic and parking.
Another of Baumgardner’s duties is to write incident and accident reports. He believes these should be documented with integrity, and says that “if you don’t document it didn’t happen.”
Baumgardner said that some of the most common things he deals with are thefts on campus.
“Most thefts on campus are thefts by opportunity, meaning, students leaving dorm rooms, vehicles, bicycles and other personal property unlocked or in plain view, making it easy for a thief,” he said.
In regard to this, Baumgardner has a few tips for students:
- Students can control opportunities of a potential thief’s desire by reducing or eliminating those opportunities by locking your door, vehicle, bicycle and placing valuable items out of sight.
- Make a list of your valuables, including serial numbers, exact descriptions, year of purchase and other distinctive features.
- Engrave your valuables with an I.D. number or driver’s license number Books and backpacks should never be left unattended
- Write an identifying characteristic, like your name or a certain number on a selected page in each book, so it can be identified if it becomes lost or stolen.
Although Safety is does not have the authority to make arrests, Baumgardner said that “security is more about being proactive; to prevent. Police are more trained to be reactive.”
Baumgardner has divided job into three main directives:
“The first is to ensure that [Ouachita] receives the highest possible quality of service, thus eliminating or at least reducing, the number of complaints resulting from dissatisfaction. And second, to ensure that my supervisor receives the earliest possible warning of conditions that develops which might lead to a client’s dissatisfaction. And third to maintain a high standard of quality service for [Ouachita] through constant vigilance.”
Baumgardner has had many jobs and achieved much in his lifetime. He graduated high school in 1971 while he lived in Newton, Kan., and shortly after, he moved back to Clark County to become a self-employed farmer. The following year, he married his wife, Marian.
Years later, Baumgardner sold his farm and equipment to take up a job at a newly constructed factory in Arkadelphia where he worked his way up to the position of foreman. He later worked at a turkey farm as the manager in Missouri and then later as a corporate manager at a poultry farm in Oklahoma.
After spending time in Oklahoma, Baumgardner and his wife moved back to Arkadelphia where he worked at a nearby prison. In 2005 he took up a position with Securitas Security Services, the former Campus Safety, after talking with the Ouachita maintenance director. He worked diligently as a security officer, working his way up the chain until he was rewarded with the promotion of becoming director of security this past January.
When Securitas was replaced with the Whelan Security Company, Baumgardner was asked to be the account manager. Baumgardner suffered from many health issues and underwent several surgeries in 2011, yet he continued to serve the Ouachita campus and students in any way that he could.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Baumgardner became the proud father of a daughter and a son. His daughter is a Registered Nurse who graduated from Henderson. His son is a corporate engineer. Baumgardner has four grandchildren he enjoys visiting in his spare time.
“They’re young,” he said. “If you just go outside with them you’re immediately their friend.”
Baumgardner said that his passion for his job is centered on the students.
“The students are the most important people on the campus,” he said. “Without them, there would be no job. [My] purpose is to serve these people who have goals. My job is to see that they are treated the way I want to be treated. They have people who love them. They have parents who cried when they dropped them off.”
Baumgardner has a personal motto.
“God created man with two ears and only one mouth and they should be used exactly in that proportion,” he said. “The Bible says it as ‘quick to listen slow to speak.’”
Gary Gray, a security officer at Ouachita and co-worker of Baumgardner said that working for Baumgardner has been “great” and that he “enjoys working for him.”
Gray also said he enjoys his work at Ouachita of the Christian environment.
“I’ve been Baptist all my life,” he said. “I enjoy seeing people openly say a blessing before a meal. You don’t see that much in the outside world. It’s very refreshing to see that.”
Photo Credit to Heather Eillis
