As chief operations officer of the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office, Dunaway was in charge of the sprawling, chaotic crime scene. Going against conventional wisdom, Dunaway sent officers into the school.

"It was a very difficult order to give," he says. "We had officers from all different agencies and they didn't know one another. There was a real possibility they would confront or even fire on each other inside. Or that someone inside, a student, could somehow get hold of a weapon, and then be fired upon by officers."

Fourteen students, including the two shooters, and a teacher died that day, and he says the traumatic experience visits him nearly every day. But with Dunaway directing the efforts of almost 1,000 responding law enforcement and emergency personnel, more than 1,500 students reached safety. He coordinated an effort that potentially stopped an even bigger tragedy from occurring.

For the law enforcement community, it was an experience from which to learn, and as leading faculty member of Edison College's new baccalaureate program in public safety management, Dunaway is bringing those lessons to Southwest Florida's future public-service agency leaders.

The program was founded so public safety personnel could earn a bachelor's degree, which would allow them to attain leadership positions. Classes started in the summer of 2006, and currently have about 70 students-some already in command positions and some just starting their careers.

The idea is to keep homegrown talent in Southwest Florida, where the high cost of housing makes it hard for agencies to attract college graduates. The program also is expected to improve the performance of our most vital public agencies, and enable them to work together more efficiently.

"More and more you will see, with terrorism, natural disasters and other incidents, we have to have a multidisciplinary approach," says Dan Deml, a fire science professor at Edison. "A program like this will help young officers from all the different agencies understand the same systems, policies, best practices and procedures. Also, with all the growth we have in this region, the huge budgets these departments now work with require a different skill set than was needed in the past."

With more than 35 years of public service leadership and 10 years' teaching experience, Dunaway is a natural choice to lead the program. He first entered law enforcement in the late 1960s, taking a summer job as a patrol officer near Carlsbad, N.M. He was attending the University of New Mexico at the time.

"I was never one of those kids who said, 'I want to be a policeman when I grow up,'" says Dunaway. "I just stumbled into it. The police department in my hometown advertised [for] a part-time summer job patrolling a lake and beachfront area. They put me in a car with someone for two or three weeks and trained me to ride a Harley. I enjoyed the work and was good at it."

After graduating with a degree in education and history, Dunaway took a full-time job with the police department in Lakewood, Colo. One of the first agencies in the country to require all officers to hold bachelor's degrees, Lakewood has served as a training ground for law enforcement leaders. More than 60 police chiefs and sheriffs from across the United States once worked in the department.

In 16 years at Lakewood, Dunaway rose through the ranks to captain. He then spent 12 years as director of risk management for Jefferson County School District before moving on to the sheriff's office in 1999.

During this time, Dunaway also earned a master's in public administration from the University of Northern Colorado, and a Ph.D. in organizational communication from the University of Colorado. He has taught as an adjunct instructor at four different colleges.

Dunaway had been at the sheriff's office just three months when the school shootings occurred.

Since then, law enforcement analysts have closely studied the Columbine response, and policies at agencies across the country have changed. Immediately entering an active-shooter situation is now thought to be the proper tactic, and some police departments now arm patrol officers with rifles, says Dunaway.

In 2003, Dunaway took a job as deputy program manager with the U.S. Department of Justice. He helped organize security for federal facilities in Washington, D.C., and after two years there, he moved to Southwest Florida.

"I had already moved to Naples when I saw an advertisement for the Edison job. I thought it sounded a little like me, and it would be a good way to finish up my career," says Dunaway.

Since taking the job in May 2006, Dunaway has been developing the fledgling program's curriculum and leading it through the accreditation process. He has also been reaching out to the region's various public-safety organizations, strengthening interagency communications.

"The Oklahoma City bombing, the Columbine shootings and Sept. 11 were three events that forced public-safety agencies to operate together," says Dunaway. "Things have changed, and the main lesson to be learned is that officials from all agencies are in this together. Southwest Florida might already be a little ahead of some parts of the country in view of the fact that we have had hurricanes, but it's a lesson that's particularly relevant here."