Keith Squires officially stepped into his new role as the Chief Safety Officer at the University of Utah on Jan. 1, 2022.

Former CSO Marlon Lynch’s acceptance of another job offer at a different university led to Squires being appointed as the interim chief safety officer, which began April 2021. 

Squires has been involved with public safety since he was a young boy. He was a law enforcement officer for 31 years, serving in the cabinet of former Utah Gov. Gary Herbert, among other positions.

As the new CSO of the U, Squires is focused on one main thing: transparency. 

“I’m big on transparency, and genuinely want input from the community,” he said. “We want them to be able to weigh in and share ideas on ways that we can improve our services, make campus much more safe and secure going forward.”

Squires said a large aspect of transparency is learning.

“I go home at the end of the day, feeling confident that we are here to learn — we’ve got a lot of work ahead of us,” he said. 

Squires hopes there will be an increase in input from the community, so the safety department can better serve them and learn from their past mistakes.

“We are excited by the opportunities to include the community, students, faculty and staff in being able to understand what we do, [and to] ask questions,” Squires said. 

He urged the community to contact his office with any questions or concerns they may have.

In addition to community outreach, Squires and his team hope to strengthen the public’s trust in the police department.

“There’s still a lot of the community reluctant to call the police when they need help,” he said. “And so one of my biggest goals is to work on that and be able to demonstrate through actions that we can be relied on. Everyone should feel comfortable, safe and secure while they’re on our campus and attending school.”

Another priority for the safety department is educating the UUPD on mental health crises, and how to appropriately handle them when responding to a call. To do this, they plan to build a relationship with the Mental Health Institute. 

Yazmin Esparza is a first year undergraduate student here at the U.

“I think what he is doing is really cool,” Esparza said. “Especially the part about giving police officers more knowledge for responding to their calls. Hopefully that could help in those situations.”

Another initiative Squires has been working on is the newly formed SafeU Student Ambassador program — a group of students who are interested in promoting safety around campus. They conduct research and make recommendations to the department on what they feel needs to be altered.

Another way he plans to be more present and available to the community is through participating in upcoming ASUU public forums to answer hard-hitting questions that the public may have.

The community can submit feedback to Squires’ office or via the feedback form found here.

“We welcome those who are involved, it’s great when people come in who are able to ask those critical questions,” Squires said. 

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@AllisonChrony