Frank Iannone was hired as the newest director of security on Feb. 28, but will not begin working until April 1.
Iannone was the director of college safety and security at Ocean Community College in Toms River, New Jersey.
The former director of security, Kevin Graham, retired on March 1 of this year.
Due to Iannone accepting the offer the day before Graham officially retired, Iannone gave his current employer a 30-day notice before coming to Florida Tech.
During the month of March, Security Lieutenant Barry Cobb has taken over most of the director responsibilities.
Cobb said he has accepted the responsibility of running the security department until the new chief comes in.
He said the biggest difference between his new responsibilities and those of his normal position is “the day-to-day decision making.”
“Before, I was kind of the behind-the-scenes guy,” Cobb said. “I would help Kevin [Graham] make decisions on what we should or shouldn’t do, where now it falls solely on me.”
Cobb said he had no input in who would be hired as the next director but said he wouldn’t have wanted any and is excited for the new director.
“New blood’s always good,” Cobb said. “Come in with some new ideas and hopefully they’ll all be positive for everybody in the university.”
After Graham announced his retirement earlier this year, Chad Shoultz, vice president for facilities operations, headed the search for finding his replacement.
After Human Resources filtered through all of the applicants, a list of about 60 prospective replacements was given to Shoultz.
This initial process by HR was intended to eliminate all applicants that didn’t reach their minimum requirements, according to Shoultz.
From there, Shoultz created a panel that included himself, the dean of students and associate vice president for student affairs, Robert Bowers, and assistant vice president of business and retail operations, Greg Graham, to help narrow down the candidates.
Shoultz said the reason he chose Bowers and Graham was because they have both had a lot of experience with the security department and it was important for both of them to be represented on the panel.
Bowers said in hiring processes like this “they usually select a panel based on people’s involvement directly with that particular position.”
The panel was able to narrow the list down to 10 candidates that stood out based on their resumes and how they fit the open position job description.
According to Shoultz, the panel was able to narrow the candidates down to five that separated themselves through their work history and experience.
After interviews with the five candidates, the panel decided on three finalists that would each have a full-day interview at Florida Tech that Shoultz called more thorough and in-depth.
After the in-person interviews, on Feb. 28, Iannone was hired as the newest director of security.
According to Schoultz, the thing that separated Iannone from the other finalists, who Shoultz said all “could have done the job and done the job well,” was his excitement for the position.
Shoultz said the job opening was posted on Dec. 1, 2018, but it took longer than expected for the hiring process to be finalized.
“My timeline was a bit of an aggressive timeline,” Schoultz said. “When you’re factoring in the holidays and coordinating the panels.”
Iannone is set to begin at Florida Tech at the beginning of next month.
Graham had been the director of security for the past 15 years.
