Photo courtesy of Casper Altman.
Meet Ryan Leabo. He’s a Cubs fan. His favorite restaurant is La Flama, and he takes his coffee black. He’s also the new Director of Public Safety at St. Ambrose University. “In this role, I hope that students can recognize and feel the difference in public safety on campus, I don’t want anything less for them.”
Leabo says he is a life-long resident of the Quad Cities, he graduated from Assumption High School and University of Iowa where he studied criminology and sociology. He also worked for the Davenport Police Department for nine years.
“I was a patrol officer, narcotics detective, crisis co-responder, and a community policing officer.”
“I got a good breath of knowledge and experience doing a lot of different things and interacting with a lot of different people while also being in all different parts of the organization. It helped me understand how things run as a whole.”
He says he heard about this new position through his wife, Shelby Leabo, who also works for SAU in communications and marketing.
“At first she sent me an email that said ‘Hey, look at this.’ I didn’t see it right away, so she called me, and said ‘Hey! Look at this!’ So, I looked and immediately felt called… like yeah, I should probably do this.”
Leabo’s Priorities and the Per Mar Agreement
Along with the new director, the SAU community learned that the Department of Public Safety transitioned from a partnership with Per Mar Security to a self operated model.
“My goal, especially this first year, is to stabilize the in-house training process so we have a solid foundation of public safety officers that students, faculty, and leadership can feel comfortable interacting with… overall, just help improve the feeling of safety and security on campus.”
Leabo points to the new training model as a way to reduce employee turnover.
Regarding the department’s name change, he says it was a necessary update, “It just suits us better. We’re concerned with more than just physical security and locked doors, we’re concerned about the overall safety of students and faculty that encompasses mental health, emergencies, weather, and everything else.”
SAU Students say…
Jaxson Eisenbarth, an SAU junior involved in residence-life on campus, says he’s excited about the updates.
“I feel he has been very proactive in reaching out to students and different departments, inquiring about what the public safety department can work on or improve moving forward.
“Public Safety plays a vital role in helping make sure our students and campus are safe. I believe that with Ryan as the new hire, Public Safety will continue to strive in addressing students’ concerns and ensuring safety for our university.”
Leabo says he wants students to know he’s there for them when it comes to safety and that he welcomes all feedback, good, bad, or otherwise.
Students can share concerns by contacting him directly at leaboryan@sau.edu, visiting his office on the first floor of the Rogalski Center, or through the feedback survey here: Link to public safety feedback survey
