School Security and Architecture – Meeting Awesome People from Coast to Coast

Safe Havens analysts have been rather busy keynoting dozens of school safety conferences around the nation. Our analysts have keynoted conferences on a variety of topics including school security conferences for architects, engineers, and school planners. This week was truly a great experience for me. I felt truly honored to present a keynote and two breakout sessions for the Kentucky Center for School Safety on Monday. They had a great turnout with a number of very relevant sessions and highly regarded speakers to provide Kentucky educators and law enforcement officers with current information on school security.

Yesterday, I keynoted for the first time at Texas Tech University in Lubbock where we had a very diverse group of architects, engineers, school administrators, and law enforcement officials. The conference was put together by Parkhill, Smith & Cooper, a large and highly respected firm of architects and engineers that build schools across the nation as well as in Europe, Asia and the Pacific Rim. 

This is the fourth conference focused on school security design issues I have keynoted this year and I have another keynote for the CEFPI conference the Monday after next in North Carolina. Discussing how to incorporate security and emergency preparedness strategies into 21st century design schools and other challenging but productive topics made for a great day.

I have been in a different city almost every day for the past seven days; the great people I have been privileged to meet make the constant travel more than worthwhile. I still have not had a single day off since Christmas day and it can be tough for all of our staff to keep up with our travel schedules. The amazing people you meet along the way make it all worthwhile. It is a constant inspiration to me to meet so many bright, dedicated and highly motivated advocates for school safety whether I am presenting in Florida, Connecticut, New York, Minnesota, Indiana, Kentucky, or Texas.

About Michael Dorn

Michael Dorn serves as the Executive Director of Safe Havens International, a non-profit school safety center. The author of 27 books on school safety, Michael’s campus safety work has taken him to 11 countries over the past 34 years.