Brooklyn Park Police Chief Mike Davis has been appointed public safety director of Northeastern University in Boston.
Brooklyn Park police chief is going to new job in Boston
After five years in charge of police, Mike Davis is taking the public safety director's job at Northeastern University.
By Jim Adams, Star Tribune
August 22, 2013 at 1:47AM
Davis, police chief for five years in the state's sixth-largest city, also was a leader in the Minneapolis police force earlier in his 20 years of police work. He and his wife will move to Boston in October, and he'll start work there Nov. 1.
Davis, who has a master's degree in organizational management from Concordia University St. Paul, called the move an "evolutionary opportunity … to dive into a different aspect of public safety" at a growing university that has several campuses around the nation. He already has taught for about five years at Harvard University's Executive Session on Policing and Public Safety.
"The addition of Mike Davis' experience and knowledge of policing — combined with his passion for the future of the profession — will undoubtedly strengthen the university on several fronts," Northeastern Senior Vice President Steven Kadish said in a statement Wednesday.
Last year, Davis received the Gary P. Hayes Award, conferred annually by the Police Executive Research Forum on a police leader who has shown outstanding initiative in improving the quality of police service. The forum is a national police leadership and research organization.
Asked what he would tell his successor in Brooklyn Park, Davis replied: "I would tell the new chief to keep us on this path."
He noted that the number of violent crimes in Brooklyn Park is at an eight-year low and that all reported crime is the lowest in 21 years.
Davis restructured the department in 2010 to move officers to different parts of the city to deal with conditions that lead to criminal activity. He noted that 2013 city surveys found 96 percent of residents think police service is good or excellent, up from 91 percent in 2011.
Meanwhile, another Brooklyn Park city department head also is leaving. Community Development Director Jason Aarsvold will resign Sept. 3 to become a financial adviser for the financial consulting firm Ehlers & Associates, Assistant City Manager Mike Sable said. Sable will handle Aarsvold's job while the city seeks a new development director.
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Jim Adams, Star Tribune
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