The Department of Public Safety has hired Chief Gary Green as their new director.
While Green has been the director of DPS since Nov. 20, he is no stranger to Ferris. Green worked at DPS from 2017 to 2022, working his way from patrol officer to captain. After his time with Ferris, Green left to fill the position of undersheriff with the Mecosta County Sheriff’s Office. According to Green, he was reached out to by the HR department on Ferris after the previous director of DPS, Abe Haroon, was no longer working at DPS.
“I’ve always had a, I guess a soft spot for kids,” Green said. “I always kind of had a soft spot for watching them grow and develop and stuff like that. And so, a position like this to help try and provide a secure environment where they can grow and learn and in, learn how to think. That whole process of learning how to reason and make those decisions and providing a safe environment for that. I really liked that.”
Green has several goals that he hopes to achieve during his time as director. One of those is to implement more safety measures on campus. While body cameras have already been installed, Green explained that DPS is in the process of getting more security cameras across campus as well. He hopes that this will deter people from committing crimes on campus.
Another goal that Green has for DPS is more interaction with the Ferris community.
“Don’t be afraid to talk to us,” Green said. “I’m going to encourage our guys to get out of their cars. Car seems to be a barrier, right? So, get out of your cars, go engage, you know? Not in a police function, but just engage whatever interests them you know, talk to them, throw the football, frisbee whatever. Just show them that we’re just people just like everybody else. You know, we all have things that we care about and things that are important to us, just like everybody else.”
Green also hopes that in addition to this, he can be honest with the Ferris community.
“You know, I think that you know, a big part of the breakdown between the police and the public is that there is a lack of trust and a lot of areas and a lot of that is because of the transparency,” Green said. “Police are a lot of times afraid to say well, we got this wrong because you’re free to get sued or whatever. I’m not that guy. I would say if we got it wrong. I will be the first one to tell you we got it wrong, and what we plan to do to fix that so that’s not gonna happen anymore.”
Helping Green implement these goals is Captain Timothy Jacobs. Jacobs was the interim chief and director before Green was hired. He explained why he continued in the position of captain
“I can be more influential in [as captain] at this time,” Jacobs said. “So, for me it wasn’t an option to promote to look at or to achieve position. Although I think I’m fine. So, but it’s getting the players to incorporate a good team and Gary’s definitely the right fit.”
The connection Green has with the staff is strong, according to Jacobs.
“So, we’re fortunate at Ferris DPS, but our Ferris community and local community are also fortunate to have a person as humble, as experienced,” Jacobs said.” He brings a huge array of experience from the Michigan State Police. From there he was an undersheriff here for a year, but he also worked at Ferris I think in 2018, but he was in my position for four years, so he was a captain or the assistant director here at Ferris. [He is] just an incredible human being.”
The previous director and chief, Abe Haroon was unavailable for comment at the time of this article’s release.