Donna Adams
Associate Director, Public Safety and Administrative & Technical Services Division
As an Associate Director, Donna’s responsibilities extend far and wide within the organization. Donna heads the administrative staff members who work in the Department’s main offices. This includes directing payroll, billing, and budget support functions, and occasionally also involves managing operations for the Chief when he is unavailable. Donna makes HR recommendations for the organization, coordinating an annual performance review process and oversees Administrative Manager area and Clery Compliance.
She oversees the Operations Support Commander (and the property and evidence, records and reports functions under the Commander), the Emergency Communications Center, the quartermaster, and courier services. Donna also supervises the Technical Services Manager, who coordinates all major IT equipment and maintenance for our camera systems, patrol car computing systems, and software upkeep. Donna is a member of the DPS Executive Leadership Team.
Donna was born in Michigan, and moved to Liverpool, NY as a young child. She attended SUNY-Albany, where she studied criminal justice, sociology, and theatre. She received a Master’s degree from the School of Information Studies in 2003. She has worked for the Department of Public Safety for 20 years, and in many capacities, including a dispatcher, records manager, payroll system administrator, and even a server administrator on Novell Netware. She shifted to her current role in 2006, and now leads 20 DPS positions.
Donna says that she loves how her job affords her variety – every day is different. She enjoys working with a group of professionals and also interacting with students.
Outside of work, Donna loves to cook gourmet meals, and she is currently taking classes in creative nonfiction writing, at the College of Arts and Sciences.