Behind the Badge
Robert Beaver stepped into the media spotlight in August as the guy behind the Orange County Sheriff Department’s new “jail hardening” project in the wake of January’s triple-inmate escape.
But it’s not the first time he made big news on behalf of the Sheriff’s Department. It’s even more impressive when you consider Beaver is fairly new to law enforcement.
Ten years ago he was Vice President of Operations for Sonnet Technologies, a computer products manufacturing and design company in Irvine.
Photo by Steven Georges/Behind the Badge OC
He had always had a hankering for public administration, though, and a lot of manufacturing operations were leaving Southern California for Mexico, China and Vietnam.
“The public sector is much more stable,” Beaver thought. “You can’t move that to China.”
With a wife, two kids and a home, he wanted to maintain job stability. “That was important to me.”
So at the age of 45, with a bachelor’s in management from the University of Phoenix under his belt, he applied for graduate school to get a master’s in public administration through Indiana State University.
One day he was surfing public sector job openings on the web just to see what was out there, when he stumbled onto a county position in research and development, which wasn’t necessarily what he was after, except that a badge popped up on the page.
A sheriff’s badge.
“I went, ‘Oh, that’s the government job I want,’” Beaver recalls.
At a news conference in August, OCSD’s Robert Beaver shows examples of the ventilation grids, left, installed at the Central Men’s Jail (CMJ) with added bars to prevent inmates from using them to escape through. File photo by Steven Georges/Behind the Badge OC
The job, it turns out, was established by the Orange County Sheriff’s Department in 1999 to oversee functional areas that didn’t fall under any of the existing commands at that time: grants, legislation, asset procurement, capital projects and managing the physical plant.
Whoever took the job would also be responsible for building new jails.
“It just felt like a calling. And a perfect fit for me,” Beaver says. “It’s always been important to me to be a law-abiding citizen. I consider myself to be very ethical.”
Beaver applied and was hired (nine years ago now) to be Director of Research and Development.
Part of his initial job was to secure funds for new jail construction. Beaver shone. He secured a total of $180 million in state funding from Assembly Bill 900 and Senate Bill 1022, a huge victory since 16 projects throughout the state were competing for the same dollars. Some of that money has paid for an additional 896 beds at the James A. Musick jail.
Sheriff Sandra Hutchens awarded Beaver a Sheriff’s Medal in 2013 and a Medal of Merit in 2014 for his role in securing the money. And this past spring he was promoted to Senior Director of Administrative Services Command, which oversees research and development, support services, financial administrative services and the communications and technology divisions.
Photo by Steven Georges/Behind the Badge OC
He is currently overseeing the “next-generation emergency communication system,” a massive upgrade and integration of the county’s police, fire and public works radio systems, the James A. Musick jail projects, automation projects for payroll and purchasing, and new technologies for reporting and records required for and by law enforcement agencies.
To balance the responsibilities that come with working at such a high level in the Sheriff’s Department, Beaver spends his time off with family. He lives with his wife Mariko (who works in commercial real estate), two great kids, and his mother-in-law. He is the father of one recent college graduate, his daughter, and a son, who he hikes with every Saturday morning.
Otherwise, you might find him working on his house (he recently built his wife a chicken coop for Mother’s Day) or sitting on the porch, doing crosswords.
“We’re pretty tame,” he says. “My wife and I really like word games. On a Friday night we’ll play Scrabble. Or entertain friends around the fire pit outside.”
He wasn’t always tame.
Beaver grew up racing on the motocross team for La Quinta High in Westminster (class of ’79). He also played basketball, until he blew out his ankle one too many times. And he played tennis and liked to run until other injuries slowed him down.
Now he sticks to daily gym workouts.
“I can’t justify just watching football on TV for hours on end so I go to the gym to get on a treadmill to watch.”
His goal is to retire by 60 (he’s 55) somewhere out of the country with his wife, returning here periodically to a rental house for visits with their kids (and hopefully grandkids).
“I want my retirement to be like a vacation,” he says.
Spain, Costa Rica and Portugal top their list.
“I want to get in and mix it up with these people and learn a language,” he says.
For now, though, he is happy that he made the career change to join the public sector.
“You’re part of something bigger,” he says. “And the camaraderie. It’s really cool. I love it. Our sheriff (Sandra Hutchens) is an inspiration. She’s just great to work for.
“I feel strongly that we have a commitment or a pact to protect the community. Even though I don’t carry a gun, I feel I play an important role in public safety. It’s an awesome responsibility.”
