For Gilman, that someone was Sara Kaminske, the manager of emergency preparedness at the Orange County Department of Education. Kaminske has worked with Gilman in the past and nominated him for the honor.
Since then, Gilman’s credentials and other relationships took him onward.
His two decades of service as a police officer, his six years of service as a school resource officer, his outstanding position as a role model for youths, and his high rapport with children all contributed to his selection for this year’s top honor, said Arthur Cummins, administrator of safe and healthy schools for the Orange County Department of Education.
Gilman has recently been working as the school resource officer for the district’s Credit Recovery Center, but prior to that worked at Estancia High School. Gilman’s work with children began when he did Drug Abuse Resistance Education, or DARE, training at elementary schools. Those same students he worked with then, some seven or eight years ago, recently graduated with Gilman as their school resource officer before he moved over to the Credit Recovery Center.
“I didn’t have to break down any walls,” said Gilman, a father of three. “They were already broken down for us.”
Unlike the contacts normal street police officers make, Gilman likes the fact he gets to spend more time with “good kids,” he said. Still, he knows that many of the children who have trouble in school are just in need of someone to point them in the right direction.
“There are so many kids that don’t have any leadership in their lives,” Gilman said. “It gets frustrating. These are the kids I try to reach out to.”
