2002 Administrative Excellence Award
Colleen A. Greninger - Assistant Director of Support Services
The George Washington University Police Department
 GW is an urban institution with more than 18,000 students
and 5,000 employees and is located on 43 acres just west of the White House.
Ms. Greninger has brought the university into the 21st century.
Three years ago, the officers at GW were hand writing
incident reports and a secretary was typing them into a homemade DOS based
program. The turn-around time for these reports to be distributed and filed
could be as long as two months based on the volume of reported incidents
received by the department. Ms. Greninger researched and installed the ARMS
system, which was a huge step toward improving the technology. Along with
this project, she was instrumental in training all of the officers to use
the report writing and dispatch functions of the new system. The officers
now write their reports on one of the networked computers and the
dispatchers maintain the blotter on the same system. The typewriters are
history!
Greninger fought for the upgrade of all the computers in the
department, which ranged from 286’s to newer computers. This including
replacing approximately fifteen machines. The problem with all of the
computers that we had is that there was no consistency or compatibility so
sharing documents was impossible. This wasted a tremendous amount of work
time for the twenty-five management team members.
She also convinced Chief Dolores Stafford to earmark funds
for a LAN network, which she ultimately installed and currently maintains.
This allowed the department to move away from the University’s antiquated
email system that crashed consistently and with which we could not receive
attachments. This system also allows all of the management team members to
review reports from their desk without having to go searching for the hand
written paper copy and to share information instantaneously.
Greninger helped coordinate the creation of a database that
holds information about people who are barred from the university, people
who are administratively determined to be persona-non-grate in some or all
university buildings, and an access list that hold data about the status of
people who are permitted to request access into restricted areas.
She coordinated the purchase and installation of the key
track system which has helped the department automate this process so
officers can get the keys they need without bothering the supervisors and
the accountability of the keys has improved ten-fold.
She coordinates and updates the Morse system that is used by
the security guards who patrol the residence halls.
She is currently working on installing a new, state-of
-the-art recording system for the telephones and radios in the department.
In addition to all of these technological improvements, she
has handled all of the renovation projects necessary to maintain a building
that accommodates 125 employees and visitors.
On an annual basis, we conduct a strategic planning session
with the twenty-five management team members and she is responsible for the
completion of approximately 25% of the goals we have identified. This shows
just how far behind the curve the department was and just how much they
count on Ms. Greninger to improve the facilities and equipment.
Ms. Greninger has been instrumental in improving the
facility and improving technology for the department so that they can all do
their jobs easier and with much more efficiency. For these reasons and more,
she is deserving of this prestigious IACLEA Award.
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