Lucretia Brown
Published: December 7, 2005
There is a bumper sticker that reads, “Fish swim in fear at the sound of my name.” Fishing is exactly what Officer Cliff Disney will be doing after he retires on Jan. 27, 2006.
Disney has been a police officer at PJC for nearly seven years. He spent four months at the Pensacola campus during his training period. He has been with the Warrington campus for the majority of his employment with the college.
Disney worked as a police officer for six years in New Jersey. For three of those years, he was a state trooper. He got a job as a loss prevention manager at Gayfers, after moving to Pensacola.
“I had the security responsibilities for those two stores,” Disney said.
When Dillards bought Gayfers, the position of loss prevention manager was no longer available. For 20 years, he held the same position. Once the store was bought out by Dillards, He was severance from the company.
“When I was working at Gayfers as a loss prevention manager, PJC’s Vice President Isaac Brigham’s son, Scott worked for me in the department. He had at that time encouraged me to look into PJC, because he felt having worked for me that would be something I would probably enjoy, with my background, something I would qualify for,” Disney said.
When Disney began his employment at PJC, he met Sgt. Alfred Alston. (At the time, Alston was an officer.) After Disney’s training he was assigned to the Warrington campus as his permanent post, so Alston did not get a chance to work with him very much.
“In the time I have worked with Officer Disney, I can safely say that it has been a pleasurable experience,” Alston said.
For the most part, Disney’s time with the college has been fairly routine. He has to go out and patrol the campus to make sure there are no parking violations and make sure students are doing what they are supposed to do.
“There have been several, what I will consider negative situations, but we have been able to handle them successfully,” Disney said.
There are a couple of things that have made Disney’s employment with the college enjoyable. One of these things is the hours he has worked. With his past jobs, Disney had to work long hours and some holidays.
“So actually this was just an ideal opportunity to be in police work, but still have those things available to me,” he said.
After retirement, Disney plans to keep himself very busy. In addition to going fishing, he plans to do some volunteer work with his church.
“I imagine I will be transporting my grandchildren around,” Disney said.
Disney is really looking forward to the day he retires.