By Steve Neavling
A retired FBI agent has been tapped to lead Oregon’s police safety certification and training agency.
Gov. Kate Brown appointed Jerry Granderson to serve as director of the Oregon Department of Public Safety Standards and Training, The Oregonian reports reports.
Granderson, 57, who retired from the FBI in April, starts his new job on March 22 and will be paid $162,216 a year.
The agency has more than a $55 million budget and is tasked with developing training and certification/licensing standards for more than 41,000 public and private safety professionals. The professionals include police officers, corrections officers, parole and probation officers, liquor control regulatory specialists, emergency dispatchers, criminal justice instructors, private security providers, private investigators, and polygraph examiners.
At the FBI, Granderson investigated narcotics, domestic terrorism and organized crime in Illinois. He also was a program manager for the bureau’s international law enforcement training academies in Botswana, Hungary, El Salvador and the United Arab Emirates.
“His background in law enforcement and public safety—with a blend of field, training, program management, and leadership experience—makes him uniquely suited for this position,” Brown said in a statement. “I look forward to his leadership, especially as we work collaboratively to improve the training and certification of Oregon law enforcement officers and as we answer the resounding calls from Oregonians for much-needed racial justice and police accountability reforms.”
Grandson received a fine arts degree and a master’s degree in international relations from Western Illinois University. He also served in the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne Division and 12th Special Forces Group of the Army Reserves.
