Catching Up with Risk Management’ s Armando Estrada( continued)
means anyone could come in. We do a Clery report, which describes all of our crime. Every university has to report all of their crime. We have a bunch of zeros, because we are in a little bubble. The community loves us.
“ Our campus safety team protects us from everything else. We have surveillance systems, we have the team walking around, so anytime students, faculty, and staff, walk onto campus and they probably never think about their safety. We’ ve done our job. And because there are so many things that can happen, we’ re not in a crime free zone. Crime does happen around the area, and it’ s not the lowest crime, if you will. But we seem to be pretty good, with not having much of anything happening here on campus,” he said.
Estrada discussed some of the more interesting experiences his team has had to address“ We get our occasional person or persons that may want to come on to campus and not be the friendliest folks. And we try to make it as seamless as possible. We’ ve had our share of individuals that have come on to campus and we’ ve had to deal with them. It’ s not always pleasant.
“ As far as on the insurance side, there are things that have that have happened on our campus that you kind of scratch your head and go,‘ How did that happen’? Thank goodness, we had somebody who paid for that situation, and it didn’ t come out of our pocket. And that’ s why we have coverage. One time we had a little pipe that broke and took out eight offices to the tune of almost $ 100,000. These offices were flooded out. But we had insurance coverage for that. The insurers came in, we paid our very low deductible, and replaced everything. campus. On the other side of the coin, there’ s also things that can happen, maybe fire, that can take place at any time. We do our very best to make sure that that if something like that happen, we’ re ready. We have alarm systems, and fire suppression systems for prevention.
Regarding campus access, Estrada noted the hours that the campus is technically closed at roughly 10 PM.“ During finals and late events, we might keep the campus open; the library, for example, to 11. We could keep the campus open until midnight if we needed to. Unfortunately, if that happens, it does increase the risk for people leaving here at midnight. We try to make sure that they leave here safe but look at your surroundings.”
The security team can escort people who are on campus as it gets later.“ We make sure that everyone that leaves here is safe. Believe it or not, people don’ t really know that we are watching. But we know when you leave the building, we know when you’ re walking to your car, we have radio communication. And you know, it’ s one of those best kept secrets that we’ re watching you, which is a good thing to make sure that that you’ re safe.”
Estrada compared working on a campus setting to his years of experience in corporate America.“ We’ re not here to make a million dollars. We’ re here to help the community be well and stay healthy. And that’ s what we’ re producing. The way I look at risk management is, I look at worst case scenario and work backwards. What’ s the worst that can happen? And I have to make sure that we’ re protected from that.”
“ The first thing we needed to do was stop the flow of water. We had to figure that out. Unfortunately, at that time, the campus was actually closed. It was during holiday season. Our security team was here, and they didn’ t know how to shut off the water. The fire department came over and did that. But the first thing to do is stop what’ s causing the damage. Once we do that, then we assess the damage. How bad is it? And then we bring in the insurance company. Are they going to cover it because insurance companies don’ t automatically cover everything? And once they cover the damage claim, it’ s time to rebuild,” he added.
Estrada characterized the University as a safe space.“ Absolutely. The numbers actually speak for themselves. The Clery report shows the low crime that we have here on
CDU College of Medicine | PG. 26