Newly appointed Director of Risk and Protection Services Gavin Solomons has quickly become a familiar sight around CPUT Campuses.
Solomons has visited all the CPUT campuses but is basing himself in Bellville for the moment to do his own long term assessment of needs and shortcoming, working alongside campus protection officers as they control access to that campus.
Though he started during recess, Solomons was thrown in on the deep end when he had to make a presentation to protection services employees in only his first week.
He used it as an opportunity to ask them how they want to be perceived and what their own goals were for campus protection services.
He sees this as his starting point as he reviews standard operating procedures dealing with everything from campus evacuation plans to guidelines for bringing more women into the campus protection services’ management structures.
“The whole idea is to make a better CPUT,” said Solomons.
His first job was as a security guard so he has insight into what it takes to guard a building in the dark or be the one running towards the loud bang.
Solomons took up this particular CPUT job because he relishes the challenge of changing how people view the institution, seeing it as so much more than just making sure campus protection officers are posted at optimal vantage points.
“It is to minimise risk and liability against the university. It’s not just guarding the property and buildings, but the brand. That is what risk assessment is and if we work here we are all brand ambassadors of CPUT,” said Solomons.
He comes to CPUT from Cape Town City’s Traffic Services where he managed traffic enforcement and flow management. He had originally started in law enforcement in 1990.
Solomons experienced the #FeesMustFall protests first hand as a student since he completed his Masters degree in public management at CPUT in 2017.
He graduated with a thesis entitled ‘Measuring the Performance of the Integrated Development Plan in a selected Metropolitan council in the Western Cape, South Africa’ and has already started planning his PhD studies working out a universal code of conduct for public servants.
Now that he is working at CPUT though Solomons is considering using what he learns on the job as possible research material, maybe even working out a model for campus protection services that would serve as a blueprint for other South African universities.
Written by Theresa Smith
