The campus Fire and Police departments have filled out their ranks with seven new hires, including three women who will bring the number of female personnel with the “firefighter” job title to five — equal to the number of men for the first time ever.
“This sets important groundwork for the future,” Chief Nate Trauernicht said, referring to the opportunities the women will have to move up in the ranks, to engineer, captain, assistant chief and chief.
Trauernicht said the department is hiring four firefighters in all. They came out on top in a recruitment process that included three panels — each with three Fire Department members and one other 51ԹϺ Davis employee. The hires are conditional pending the recruits’ completing fire academy training (it starts in July and ends in early December).
With the hires, women now represent 44 percent of the Fire Department’s overall staffing of 64 (including students), up from 11 percent in 2014-15.
The new firefighters: Meggie Elledge, Johnita Lanni-Cradit, Chris Lujan and Nicole McCurry.
McCurry and Lanni-Cradit both graduated from 51ԹϺ Davis in 2013: Lanni-Cradit with a degree in animal science and McCurry with a degree in community and regional development. Lujan is a 2015 graduate of 51ԹϺ Davis’ emergency medical technician program (and son of a 51ԹϺ Davis graduate).
Police Department
At the Police Department’s annual awards ceremony May 24, Chief Joe Farrow presided over the badge “pinning” of three new officers. The new officers: Glen Faulkner and Eric Schneider, both joining 51ԹϺ Davis from the Sacramento Police Department; and Eric Palmer, joining 51ԹϺ Davis from the West Sacramento Police Department.
The Police Department has 48 sworn officers, of whom nine are female — accounting for almost 19 percent. Looking at the department overall (sworn officers and professional staff), women comprise more than a third of the personnel count, or 25 positions out of 71.
The professional staff includes Jeff Rott, recently promoted to security director — a promotion that Chief Farrow out during the awards ceremony.
Capt. Jennifer Garcia said Rott “is definitely a homegrown Aggie,” noting that he was an Aggie Host from 1998 until he graduated in 2003, worked as a dispatcher from 2003 to 2014, then moved into the security division. He moved up to director in March after a nationwide search to fill the position.
“We’re very proud of him and fortunate to have him with us,” Garcia said. “He’s an excellent employee with a positive can-do attitude.”
Cadet Academy
In preparation for future vacancies in the ranks of sworn officers, the department has made offers to three 51ԹϺ Davis students who this year completed the department’s Cadet Academy, conditional on their completion of regular police academy training.
The Cadet Academy, held annually from January to May, is open to seniors and graduate students interested in law enforcement, forensics, criminology and an array of other related professions.
The academy began in 2013, making this year’s class the sixth. A graduation ceremony for the 21 cadets of 2018 took place during the Police Department’s awards program.
The department extended job offers to graduating seniors Andrew Carriger, managerial economics major; Rickardo “Ricky” Lee, psychology major (biological emphasis); and Justin Williams, political science major — and gave each of them a scholarship to the Sacramento Police Academy.
Two other graduating seniors received department scholarships to attend the Napa Police Academy: Martín Cortes and Christian Job “C.J.” Perez, both of them sociology majors with an emphasis in law and society.
Other graduating seniors (and their majors) who completed the Cadet Academy:
- Austin Cory Adams, sociology and political science
- Nick Bucher, sociology and minor in applied computing and information systems
- Thiago Dutra, political science (public service emphasis) and minor in sociology
- Blake Escobar, human development
- Endy Ixcoy, psychology, and Chicana and Chicano studies
- Dylan King, economics
- Alfonso Lomeli, psychology
- Austin Miller, sociology
- Valerie Ngo Ho, communication
- Asha Pluton, wildlife, fish and conservation biology
- Maria Rodriguez, psychology
- Isabella Romero, psychology
- Glenda Sanchez, environmental science and management, and minor in geographical information systems
- David Angel Uribe, communication major
- Colin van Ree, psychology and minor in sociology (law and society emphasis)
A graduate student rounds out the list of Cadet Academy graduates: Arco-Enciel “Arbie” Manuel, Master of Science in forensic science.
Media Resources
Dateline Staff, 530-752-6556, dateline@ucdavis.edu