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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Spokane Public Schools taps Iraq vet to serve as new director of security, transportation and risk management

Santos Picacio is the new director of safety, transportation and risk management at Spokane Public Schools. He has a military background and most recently was manager of the Durham bus fleet in Spokane. (Dan Pelle / The Spokesman-Review)

When one of the most important positions at Spokane Public Schools opened up this spring, Santos Picacio took one look at the job description and smiled.

The job: Director of Campus Security, Student Transportation and Risk Management for a district that serves more than 30,000 students.

That means getting students to school on time and keeping them safe. It’s a tough job in the best of times, but Picacio had already faced the worst.

“I said to myself, ‘I’ve done 98% of this in the U.S. Army,’” said Picacio, who rose to the rank of major, saw frontline duty during two tours to Iraq and spent much of an 18-year military career supporting deployments around the world.

For Picacio, risk management was more than preventing accidents at the neighborhood elementary school. In Iraq, that meant “clearing this house and making sure there’s no bad guys in there, and how can we not have any casualties?”

By the time the Spokane Public Schools job opened, Picacio was one year into his role as general manager at the Spokane office of Durham School Services, a 250-person operation that, among other things, transports the district’s students to school and back.

The boxes duly checked, Picacio sent in his application. “I didn’t even expect to get a call, but lo and behold, after three intense interviews,” he got the job.

By mid-July, Picacio had said goodbye to his “Durham family” and set up his office two miles away at SPS headquarters.

“That’s the type of person and leader that I am,” Picacio said last week. “I’m always interested in making a difference.”

Picacio grew up with that attitude. Growing up in a military family in southern Texas, 5-year-old Santos took the initiative and decided to give his father’s boots an extra shine – with peanut butter.

“That upset him, but I wanted to be like dad,” said Picacio, whose father spent 30 years in the Army as an enlisted man. Determined to follow in his footsteps, Picacio tried to enlist straight out of high school.

Dad had a better plan: ROTC at Texas-Pan American University and the fast track toward becoming an officer following graduation in 1997 with a degree in criminal justice.

“Dad was right,” Picacio said.

By 2005, Picacio was in Iraq, deployed at a combined U.S. and Iraqi Forward Operating Base for 12 months of combat operations.

Given a chance to retire early, Picacio did so in early 2015. A month later, he moved to Spokane with his wife Janet and their three children to become the service manager at Cintas, which sells and rents uniforms and offers other business supplies.

In May of 2018, Picacio took over at Durham, where military-like punctuality is a must – even during the worst snowstorms.

“That’s something that people don’t often think about: with snow, what it takes to get a bus from point A to point B,” Picacio said. “It’s a daunting task, but the people at Durham are hardworking people who get the job done and get it done safely.”

They also expect to do it promptly, with buses hitting each stop within two minutes of the schedule time. “We pride ourselves on that,” Picacio said.

Picacio is taking over from Kevin Morrison, who served on an interim basis following Mark Sterk’s retirement last fall.

At Durham, Picacio spent many hours replying to upset parents, and he expects to do the same at the school district.

“Parents are like students and employees: They want to feel valued, but mostly they want to feel that they’re voices are being heard,” the 46-year-old Picacio said Thursday.

“I’ve talked to angry parents,” Picacio said. “I tell them I’m humbled, I understand what your issue is. Then I tell them what I’m allowed to do, here’s what I’m not allowed to do.”

“But my door is always open, I will always answer my phone and I will always answer my email,” Picacio said.

Some decisions are out of Picacio’s hands. The district is still digesting the findings from a school-safety report issued last spring by Safe Havens International, which advocates arming campus resource officers in schools.

With three of five positions turning over this year, the current board will likely take no action.

“I’m a proponent for schools being safe,” said Picacio, who calls the installation of secure single-point entry a “phenomenal” move.

Meanwhile, the board still hasn’t finalized next year’s budget, including whether or not to release elementary school students early on Fridays.

“No matter what, we’re ready,” Picacio said.